


wherever i'm with you

by barelyjoyous, restlesslikeme



Category: Bandom, Chitown Hipsters, Empires, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:10:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelyjoyous/pseuds/barelyjoyous, https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlesslikeme/pseuds/restlesslikeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean says it’s good for both of them to have someone around: Nick so that he doesn’t forget he’s not the only person on the face of the earth, and Ryan so that he doesn’t burn anything down. It’s mostly a joke, but he does like it. Having Ryan there. It makes it feel more like home, or like something anyway.</p><p>In which Ryan is in love with his straight best friend, Nick is scared of growing up, and everyone- eventually- has to figure out where they belong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wherever i'm with you

Coming out wasn't easy for Ryan by any stretch of the imagination. His friends, that was no big deal, it was his family that had been the problem. By the time he was sixteen, he’d already lent a hand to Pete to figure out his whole 'gay above the waist' sexuality, and spent a few weeks sneaking into William’s bedroom every night. The whole scene was quasi-gay anyways, and even when Ryan mentioned that he was gay to the friends that he hadn't slept with, nobody even batted an eye, and most of them even mentioned that they knew someone that he would really like.

So, no. Coming out in the Chicago scene wasn't ever the issue that Ryan was worried about. It was more the iidea of telling his absent republican father and his drunk welfare mother that made him nauseated. When Tom used to hang around with him more often than not, he always pretended that he couldn't hear whatever his mom was muttering under his breath about them.  

It didn't go over smooth in the end. Ryan intentionally waited until after he had graduated, until he knew there was someplace he could crash after things went down. The night ended with Ryan storming out of his mom's run-down trailer with two bags slung over his shoulder. He crashed with Sean for a few days until he ran into Pete, who offered him a place on his couch until he could get on his feet.

"Sometimes we make our own family, Looch," Pete said one night when Ryan found himself on the verge of tears in Pete's bathroom. "Usually you look in the cracks or between the lines and figure out that they've been waiting there the whole time."

Ryan turned his head against Pete's chest and breathed in deep, let Pete's hand on his back pull him in close. He took a deep breath in through his nose until he couldn't smell anything but Chicago, sweat and booze and cold air, little hints of the weed and cigarettes Ryan had smoked on the back porch earlier that day.

Later,  Ryan let Pete drag him out to a show, and Ryan didn't even mind helping the band of the night load their equipment back into their trailer. He let the band buy him enough booze that he was starting to get unsteady on his feet, and when he stumbled into the bassist by accident, Ryan let his eyes get heavy and followed him back to their van.

\---

Ryan gets into this weird thing with Andy right about the same times he starts remembering Nick Scimeca.  Nick has always been around, and even though Ryan can recall being introduced to him and his mouth going dry, he doesn't ever remember Nick being present quite so much.  Nick started up his own business a few years ago, and now that Pete's band is starting to take off and he's working on his label, Nick has been hanging out a lot more. Ryan keeps seeing him across the room at shows around town, and it always seems like Nick is just leaving Pete’s house whenever Ryan heads home.

It’s after the fifth time he sees Nick at an Academy Is... show downtown that Ryan moves in with Andy- mostly for a lack of anywhere else to go; the fact that they've been sleeping together might have less to do with it than Ryan is willing to admit, but he goes regardless. Ryan likes to be around while Andy paints. He likes to watch the way his muscles move under all his ink, and he likes it even better when Andy holds him down tight against the bed and bites his neck.

Andy has another gig downtown the next time Ryan runs into Nick.  Ryan's sitting backstage with Andy, rubbing the tension out of his hands (Ryan drums too, or he used to, he knows how bad it can hurt) when Nick bursts into the room with his arm draped around William's shoulder, and Ryan thinks _maybe_.

After the opener, Ryan makes his way out to the bar, orders a beer, and stays to the back, drinking slowly. He lets the kids push their way to the front, and tries to make himself watch Andy drum.

"Luciani!" Ryan hears somebody yell his name, and he turns to the right to see Nick walking over. He has his arm around some pretty little brunette wearing plaid to match him, and Ryan has to give himself a second to figure out why something drops so hard in his stomach. He lets Nick wrap him up into a drunken hug, and lets Nick's girlfriend, Stephanie, buy him another beer. He sits at the bar with them for most of the show, listening to Nick talk about their trip to Cabo and watching the way Stephanie keeps her hand on Nick's leg, even though Nick doesn't spend too much of his time holding onto her.

At the end of the night Ryan walks backstage with Nick's new cell number programed into his cheap prepay phone ("Pete leaked mine on his blog, motherfucker.") and lets Andy hold onto his neck and pull him into a kiss.  Ryan kisses back just as hard, hard enough to convince himself to stop thinking about Nick Scimeca and his pretty little girlfriend, and makes small impatient noises in the back of his throat until Andy shoves them into the venue bathroom and makes him forget the heaviness in his gut.

 

\---

 

Ryan and Andy break up when Andy leaves for tour. Andy admits flat out that he can't make any promises while he's gone, says that it's “been fun”, and Ryan feels his face go blank, stutters out a few "Yeah, yeah of course"'s and throws his bags together before Andy finishes packing for tour. He doesn't cry until he's safely stoned and sitting on the couch in Sean and Tom's apartment.

It works out, sort of, that Tom is leaving for tour as well, and that Sean can't be trusted to live on his own for five months, so Ryan starts alternating between the couch and sleeping in the bed with Sean. He lives out of his backpack, and looks for another job doing something that he hates, and by the time Tom and  the rest of the guys get back from tour Ryan has a new apartment and a full time job making sandwiches at Subway.

His new roommate, Al, works as a sound tech at a recording studio downtown and when Ryan isn't working he lets Ryan tag along, and sometimes even lets him bang on the drums until he can't breathe anymore.

\---

Ryan and Al have a long standing tradition of drinking until they can't see straight on every birthday, national holiday, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Al's girlfriend (who has been halfway living with them for the past three months) left last week, going back home to Ohio for some family reunion, and Ryan takes it upon himself to cheer Al the fuck up.

They start out drinking at Al's new favorite bar, some hole in the wall with cheap PBR and dollar shots from 6:00 to 7:00.  After that, Ryan drags Al to a bar a few blocks away and buys them both a pitcher of beer and listens to Al whine about sleeping alone for the next 45 minutes until he hears a familiar laugh and feels his stomach do a familiar loop. When he looks to his side he sees Nick Scimeca walking towards their booth with a guy that Ryan vaguely recognizes from shows. Al jumps up and wraps Nick into a hug and makes some noise about getting more glasses from the bar.

"Looch!" Nick says excitedly and pulls Ryan up into a hug. Ryan goes easy and wraps his arms back around Nick, being careful to not hold on for too long. When Nick slides his arms off of Ryan's shoulders he smiles big and bright. "You never called me, dick! I was going to buy you shots and everything!"

Ryan remembers; he remembers Nick giving him his phone number, remembers promising that they'd have drinks before the month was over. He also remembers not calling because he was scared that Nick would forget, because he didn't trust himself. Mostly though, he didn't think that Nick would even _care_.

"Yeah, yeah sorry. You know how shit goes man. Sit down, have a beer!" Ryan says sitting back down and looking over towards the bar where Al seems to be ordering a new drink as well as trying to balance two new glasses in one hand.

"Yeah, thanks. You remember De'Mar?" Nick says sliding into the booth next to Ryan while De'Mar scoots into the opposite side of the table. Ryan makes a noise of acknowledgment and watches as Nick pulls Ryan's beer towards him and takes a long drink.

Nick stays long enough to buy them another pitcher of beer and watch Al down most of it. By the end of the night, Ryan is slumping against the booth, laughing harder than he can remember laughing in a long time, and even letting Nick take a stupid picture of them together and send it to twitter.

Nick has his arm around Ryan's shoulder, and Ryan vaguely remembers it being there for most of the night. He thinks back to the show when Nick had kept his hands mostly to himself instead of on his girlfriend, and he wonders absently where she is, if she's still in the picture, if there's another girl Nick has waiting for him back at home.  

It turns out not to matter, though, because pretty soon Al is slumped over against De'Mar’s shoulder, and Ryan has to stumble to his feet and pull him up.  Nick hugs them both and yells at Ryan to not forget to call him this time- for real Luciani!- and Ryan calls a cab to drive him and Al home.

Al is drunk, Al is so drunk that it takes Ryan a few tries to actually get him in the door.  Although, actually, matters are only made worse by the fact that Ryan himself is a little too drunk to handle the fine motor coordination of opening the door to their apartment.

When they finally get inside, Ryan walks Al into his bedroom and helps him pull his shoes off before he finally gets Al to lie down on his bed.  Ryan laughs a little and straightens up, and before he can ask Al one more time if he's okay before he says good night, Al sits up again and pulls Ryan in close, wraps his hands around Ryan's shoulders and _kisses_ him. Al kisses him hard enough that Ryan loses his breath, and he knows that Al's drunk, knows that he's drunk too, but he tries to think back to the last time somebody kissed him like this. He thinks that maybe it was Andy, it had to have been, but then he remembers why Andy left and decides that it doesn't count.

Finally, Ryan decides that he's only human, and he's too drunk to keep reasoning with himself, so he lets Al kiss him, helps Al push their clothes off, falls onto his back and pulls Al on top of him. Ryan arches his back up and wraps his legs around Al's hips to pull him in closer, and listens to Al mumble against his skin. He doesn't hear what he says, but it feels. It feels good and Ryan'll take it.

\---

 

Ryan wakes up in the morning with a headache, but his head feels clearer, just a little, and he vaguely thinks about going back to sleep before he rolls over and remembers where he is.  Al's still asleep, and Ryan can see their clothes all over the floor. He looks over towards the alarm clock on his night stand, but instead his eyes fall on a picture of Al and his girlfriend.

Ryan gets up slowly, carefully and quietly, and pulls his jeans on before he walks out of Al’s room. Ryan takes a shower and digs through his closet for something clean before he chances to walk out of his room in search of some caffeine.  

Al is sitting at the kitchen table with a mug in his hands and his cell phone sitting next to him. The air feels tense, so Ryan doesn't say anything as he walks to the counter to pour a cup of coffee.

"Look, Ryan." Al finally says as Ryan's stirring the sugar into his mug. Ryan tenses his shoulders and doesn't turn around, takes a sip of his coffee and looks out the window above the sink. "I'm sorry man, I just. I think that maybe it would work better if you found a new place? I mean. Melissa's going to start moving in when she gets back and like." Al's voice trails off and after a few seconds Ryan realizes that he's gripping his mug so tight that his knuckles are white, that a little bit of it has spilled over his hand.

"Yeah. Yeah don't worry about it." Ryan says, and he wonders how many times he's going to have to say that in his life.

 

\--

Ryan ends up leaving a majority of his big stuff at Al’s apartment.  He keeps telling himself that he’ll figure it out later, but he isn’t sure that he even believes himself. He has his old backpacks packed full of the necessities and that was all he managed to grab before he ran out of the apartment as fast as he could.

At this point, Ryan knows that he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go.  Crashing with Sean is always an option, and Sean would punch him if he said otherwise, but. Sean and Tom have made this little life for themselves and sometimes crashing on the couch and waking up to them sharing a cup of coffee and a cigarette hurts more than knowing why he had to crash there in the first place.

For a lack of anywhere to go, Ryan walks to work. He claims that he left his phone charger in the break room, and he ends up agreeing to work a shift that afternoon. Ryan shoves all his stuff into his locker and sits at the little table with his head in his hands. He looks around sometimes and wonders how he got here. He’s working a 40 hour a week minimum wage job with a bunch of high school kids; every band he’s played with has broken up within a month.

Ryan had been stupid enough to think that the night before had actually been something.  When Al had pulled him up from his knees until his chest was pressed tight against Ryan’s back, when he had breathed out hard against his ear and tangled his hand tight into Ryan’s hair, Ryan had thought for half a second that this was something that Al had _wanted_. Ryan had thought that when he moved in with Andy it had been something Andy had wanted too, not just a way to pass the time until he left on tour again.  But then, Ryan was convenient, he was easy, and he had already slept with everybody anyhow. He supposed that they already knew that he was no trouble to bring home.

Ryan just wouldn’t admit to himself that he was fucking sick of it.

After his shift, Ryan takes out his cell phone and hits ‘call’ before he even gives himself time to process what he’s doing.

Nick answers on the second ring

\---

It's not like Ryan 'lost' his job. Technically. Technically he just forgot about it on one of his scheduled days, and now he's spending his mornings circling ads in the paper and stealing Nick's iPad to look online for work.

Ryan doesn't need to work, not really. He doesn't pay rent, and every time he tries to buy groceries or booze or clothes anymore, Nick says "don't be stupid" and hands over his credit card before Ryan can start looking for cash in his wallet. Still, he’s going to keep looking for work and saving his money for when something happens, the way he’s learned something eventually always will. When Nick gets another girlfriend, Ryan will have enough money to get his own place this time.  When Nick's ready to grow up and stop letting his friends crash in his spare room for free, Ryan won't have to frantically find a couch to sleep on again.

Nick's been working longer and longer days lately; Ryan thinks he remembers something about a bunch of new high profile clients, and he knows that Nick and Shawn have been doing a lot of conference calls with California and New York. He also knows for a fact that Nick didn't bring anything to work to eat for lunch today, and besides, it's not like he has anything going on.  

Ryan walks down the street to the new vegan deli that opened up ( _“They knew we lived here, Ryanj! They went into business just to make our life easier!”_ Nick had proclaimed when they were setting up shop) and orders Nick his favorite fruit salad and an order of Pad Thai.  He sees Nick's car still parked on the street, and remembers that he has a set of spare keys in his pocket.  Even though it's technically not that far- not far enough to justify a cab- he’d have to wait at least another 30 minutes for the bus, it's starting to get cold out, and Ryan would rather not freeze trying to bring Nick some lunch. In the end he decides to buy Nick some gas to make up for it, and takes the car.  

Ryan's expecting parking to be a bitch, but he finds a spot right in front of Nick's new office building and locks the car.  He remembers bitching at Nick about getting a second floor office space, he could have at least found one with an elevator, but it's really not that bad.  He hasn't been in here in awhile, and he's surprised to see all the little changes.  It still looks new and fantastic, even though he knows that Nick and Shawn pay out the ass to keep it looking that way.

As he walks up to the door Ryan has to stop for a second and catch his breath.  He's so proud of Nick for doing all of this. When they first met Nick was just barely designing websites off his computer and doing freelance work.  Now he has this huge beautiful office space that he _owns_ , and employees and business partners, and last month he was working with Warner Brothers and conference calling with _Disney_ about some work, and sometimes it hits Ryan so hard that he has to just. Stop. And re-evaluate where he's at with the situation.

Ryan forces himself to smile and pushes open the front door and looks around carefully.  He doesn't immediately see anybody, but he hears noise coming from the conference room and turns to check it out. He can see an episode of Entourage projected on the screen and Nick and Shawn are sitting with their feet propped on the table and a six pack of PBR between them. They're eating popcorn and cracking up, and Ryan watches the way Nick's head tips back as he laughs at something funny on screen and feels his throat go a little dry.

Ryan hears movement behind him, and turns to see Brooke and one of the interns walk through the door, and he waves at them before he pushes open the door to the conference room and walks in.

"The fuck are you doing, Scimeca?" Ryan says, laughing.

"Dude, don't even." Nick says defensively, taking a long swig from his bottle of beer.

"We had the busiest day you have no idea." Shawn says idly, he's mostly sipping his beer and watching the television show, but he sounds like he wants to be sincere enough to back Nick up in defending how they spend their afternoons at work.  

"Looch did you bring me _Pad Thai_?" Nick asks excitedly reaching out with grabby hands towards the brown paper bag in Ryan's hand.

"Pad Thai _and_ that new fruit salad they do." Ryan explains, sitting down in the chair next to Nick and pulling the containers out of the bag and setting them in front of Nick.

"Hey, I'm gonna go catch Lindsay for lunch, man." Shawn says suddenly, clapping Nick on the back and nodding at Ryan before he walks out the door.

Ryan nods at him, and he feels a little guilty, is worried about what Shawn probably thinks. Shawn gives him a weird look, sort of like a sad smile, that makes Ryan shift uncomfortably in his seat.

Nick already has the containers opened by the time Ryan looks back to him, and Nick hands him the spare fork from the bag. "I swear to god their fruit is better than most normal fruit." Nick says around a mouthful of fruit salad.

"Every time you eat fruit you say it's better than other fruit though," Ryan feels compelled to point out, and reaches across Nick to grab his beer and take a long drink from the bottle. "I think they just use really good vegan yogurt stuff to mix it together with." Ryan says, taking a bite of melon and chewing it thoughtfully.

"I don't know what they do," Nick says, leaning back and pulling the Pad Thai container with him this time. "But I just hope they keep doing it forever."

Ryan makes a humming noise and steals Nick's beer again.

\---

It’s a Wednesday, and on Wednesday nights Ryan raids their cabinets to make something for dinner, and Nick makes long island iced teas, and they sit down to watch Lost. Ryan had resisted at first, but Nick has him hooked now, and Ryan isn't looking back.

Nick usually goes to the grocery store on Thursdays, so Ryan always tries to use up as much as he can when he cooks dinner the night before. Nick has a tendency to buy a lot of stuff that they never eat. Tonight, he’s just making stir fry, but he’s trying to cook the tofu in peanut sauce how Nick likes it when the phone rings.

Ryan had been wondering, since Nick usually gets home from work around four or five, especially on Wednesday nights, but when he answers the phone he can hear voices in the background, too loud music and the clinking of glasses: Nick is obviously at a bar. Ryan tries to open his mouth, he isn't sure what he was going to say- 'hello' or 'it's Wednesday' or 'what' but for some reason nothing comes out.  It doesn’t matter, though, because before he can coordinate his mouth with his brain Nick is already talking.

"Hey, RyanJ hey." Nick pauses momentarily, like he’s taking a drink, and Ryan still doesn’t move. "You home, man?" He asks, and his voice is light and happy; Ryan feels something twist in his chest, and before he can stop himself he’s smiling and leaning back against the counter.

"Yeah, yeah I'm home, what's up?" Ryan answers, stirring the tofu around in the skillet a little.

"Yo, there's this redhead who's been eying me all night. Do you like, mind dude?" Nick asks, and his voice sounds distracted. Somebody is laughing in the background and Ryan hears Nick laugh after a second too, hears the muffled sound of him talking to somebody else, like he’s covering the mouthpiece of his cell phone.

Ryan feels his eyes sting, feels something well up in his chest, and he drops the spatula he was using to cook with in the pan. "Uh. Yeah, no, I'll find some place to crash." Ryan says quietly, closing his eyes as tight as he can and pressing the palm of his hand against his brow bone.

"You don't have to leave, I'm just going to take her to my room, figured I'd give you a heads up."

"Hey, it's your place." Ryan says, his voice still quiet. "I'll figure it out."

"Cool, hey. Thanks." Nick says, and Ryan is back to not being able to open his mouth. He makes some sort of excuse and hangs up the phone before Nick is able to say anything else, and when he opens his eyes again he sees smoke billowing from the stove top and he curses, switching the stove off as fast as he can and throwing the pan into the sink.

Ryan turns on the water and reaches behind the sink to open the window, trying to fan some of the smoke out of the kitchen. By the time the smoke clears Ryan can see where the spatula has melted to the inside of the pan. Gasping for breath, he lets his brain switch to autopilot and starts to carefully clean up the kitchen. He throws the ruined pan into the garbage, and goes over to the wok where the rice and the vegetables were cooking. He scrapes the contents into the garbage and starts washing the dishes he had used, not wanting to leave them in the dishwasher and risk Nick seeing them in there.  Ryan doesn’t.  He doesn’t want to seem like he was waiting.

Ryan knows Nick pretty well, and he knows that Nick hates messes, but there’s nothing he hates more than a messy kitchen. Ryan cleans until there’s nothing left to do, and then he takes the garbage out.

Ryan calls around, halfheartedly, and when nobody answers his phone calls, he steals Nick’s headphones and locks himself in his room to smoke the rest of his pot until he passes out.

 

\----

 

Ryan wakes up hard and straining against his mattress.

In the few seconds it takes him to come around and fully wake up, he realizes that he’s tangled up in the cord of his headphones and that he can vaguely hear noises coming from the other side of his wall. When he glances towards the window automatically he can see that it’s still night time.

Ryan untangles himself, and spends a few seconds trying to will his erection away, until he hears a distinct bang from behind the wall he shares with Nick. Ryan cautiously takes off his headphones and sits up.

Ryan’s usually careful, and he’s never been home when Nick’s brought somebody home from the bar before- now he knows why he always makes that extra effort. It’s not hard to imagine what’s happening because Nick seems to be pretty vocal.

Ryan takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself, and he reaches for his headphones again, he swears he does, until all of a sudden he hears Nick gasp, hears him say “ _Like that, yeah yeah,_ ” and before he knows what he’s doing, Ryan has a hand on his dick and is squeezing tightly.

He makes it through another five minutes of Nick telling whoever he’s with what to do, listening to what he likes, and trying to bite down on his own palm to keep quiet whenever he hears Nick make a particularly loud noise before Ryan gasps and comes all over his fist.

He feels disgusting, he feels dirty and like an asshole, and he can _still hear them_ and there’s nothing Ryan wants more than to take a shower, to leave the apartment and forget anything ever happened.

Ryan carefully cleans himself off, and looks around his room for the jeans he had on earlier in the day. He pulls them on, and pulls a shirt out of his closet, slips on a pair of shoes.

He hears the girl in Nick’s room ask if he has a condom, and Ryan feels his stomach turn, feels like he’s going to be sick, and he slips out of his room.  

It’s a lot quieter in the living room, and even though it doesn’t help his upset stomach to see a pair of high heels and a woman’s coat lying on the floor next to the couch, he feels marginally better. Ryan goes to grab a jacket off the hook next to the door, and he carefully slips out of the front door and walks down the hall to the elevator.  

Ryan doesn’t realize until he’s looking at himself in the glass wall of the elevator that he’s been crying, and that he grabbed one of Nick’s jackets by mistake.  Ryan hugs it tight around himself and turns around to face the doors and doesn’t look again.

Ryan goes to the parking garage without thinking about it, and uses the spare key on his keyring to unlock Nick’s car.  He entertains a few ideas of where to go, he knows where the spare key to Sean’s apartment is, and that Nick keeps a spare key to the office in his car.

Ryan puts the key in the ignition, and instead of starting it up, turns it back, so that the radio clicks on. A CD that he made Nick starts to play, and before Ryan can think anymore, he falls asleep sitting in the driver seat of Nick’s car.  

 

\----

Ryan goes on a date.  

He doesn’t know the guy; Tom had introduced them at the bar. A friend of a friend of a friend, but that’s how Tom knows just about everybody.  He’s nice, a few years old than Ryan.  He’d told Ryan that he has a degree in Art History, and was wearing expensive shoes.  They had a few drinks together at the bar that night, and Ryan went home with him.

Ryan didn’t let the guy, James, fuck him that night. They made out and listened to an old Radiohead album and fell asleep on the couch.  When he woke up, Ryan’s head was in James’ lap and there was a hand in his hair. Right then he remembered Sean telling him that somebody out there was looking for him, too, and for a few minutes Ryan let himself drift back to sleep and think that maybe this was him.

They go out to dinner the next night, someplace nice that Ryan’s never been to before.  James picks him up in front of Nick’s condo and drives him downtown. He’s well dressed, and he drives a nice car. He lets Ryan pick the music.

\----

 

Ryan orders the only vegan dish on the menu without thinking about it (he always orders vegan when he eats with Nick, because otherwise Nick will get talking about the documentary he saw again, and Ryan doesn’t really mind anyway. It’s good food) and listens to James talk about Chicago State, about the year he spent in Italy his Junior year, about all the art he saw, the museums he went to. At one point he talks about Da Vinci in perfect Italian.

Halfway through the meal, Ryan’s phone starts buzzing.  He glances at the screen, and when he sees Nick’s name, he hits ignore. The fourth time it starts buzzing, Ryan makes a guilty excuse to answer the phone and apologizes a few times before standing up. James waves it off, says it’s okay, and Ryan walks out the front door and calls Nick back.

“Yeah?” Ryan asks, pulling his coat tight around his chest. Chicago winters are colder than normal this year.

“Where are you man?” Nick asks and Ryan hears the television in the background. It’s quiet besides that, so Nick must be alone.

“I’m at dinner, Nick.” Ryan says, his voice a little sharper than it usually is. He should have just popped the battery out of the back of his phone and stayed inside. The last thing he wants to do is talk to Nick about this.

“With Sean?” Nick asks. “Dude you should come back over we just got all the new shit on Netflix. Tell him something came up!”

Ryan closes his eyes for a second.

“I’m at dinner,” he repeats, firmer and more deliberate this time. “With someone. Not Sean.”

The line is quiet except for the television in the background, and Ryan waits for the goading he knows will come in a second. He’s about to tell Nick he has to go just so that he can head it off when instead Nick says “Oh.” his voice is quiet, surprised and disappointed in a way that Ryan wasn’t expecting at all.

“Yeah,” Nick says, and Ryan can picture his scrubbing a hand back through his hair, can hear him swallow thickly. “Yeah. Sure. Right. I’ll. I’ll just throw this in the fridge then. I just thought.” he clears his throat, and there’s the clinking of bottles in the background, as if he just shoved something into the refrigerator against them. “Never mind.”

“Are you okay?” Ryan asks. He’s gripping his cell phone tight enough for his knuckles to start slowly turning white. “You called me like, four times, so.” He lets his voice trail off at the end like he’s waiting for something- he doesn’t know what, exactly.

“I guess, yeah.” Nick says, and his voice is still quiet, he’s still using that weird distant tone that Ryan doesn’t think he’s ever heard aimed at him before.

“What did you get?” Ryan asks eventually, digging through his pockets for his cigarettes. His hands are shaking when he pulls one out and flicks his lighter. He takes a shaky breath in, and turns around to look into the restaurant. His eyes scan for a minute, until they land on James, sitting by himself at the table waiting. Waiting for him.

“Chinese.” Nick mumbles after a beat, voice still quiet. “Chicken rice. I was cheating.”

Ryan stops for a second. He thinks about James, sitting inside this restaurant Ryan’s never been to before tonight, nice and expensive but a little generic; James ready to pick up the bill once their food gets there and take Ryan back to his place later tonight. And then he thinks about Nick, waiting at home with Ryan’s favourite Chinese and beer and Netflix. About Nick burying his face into Ryan’s shoulder when he finds something really funny. About how Nick came home to see him.

“I haven’t eaten yet.” Ryan says. “I’m on Erie West. If you wanted-” he trails off.

“Do you need me to come get you?”

“Yeah.” Ryan says, pressing a palm to his eye and taking a long drag off his cigarette. “Yeah, Nicky, you should come get me.”

\---

 

Ryan ends up falling asleep on the couch with Arrested Development playing on the TV and Nick passed out on the other end.  When he wakes up in the morning, Nick hasn’t moved, and the TV is stuck on the Netflix home page, casting a red light over the hardwood floors. Ryan sees that his phone is lit up with new messages and he’s assuming missed calls, and he feels a wave of embarrassment wash over him. He doesn’t check it, and instead grabs Nick’s iPhone off the coffee table and stumbles towards the balcony, grabbing his hoodie as he goes.

He lights up a cigarette as soon as he shuts the door behind him. Nick is always bitching about the condo smelling like cigarette smoke until he gets high, Ryan thinks fondly, then he likes to roll his joints with tobacco. He calls them jazz cigarettes, and if he’s stoned enough he’ll start humming Louis Armstrong while he does it.

Ryan drags off his cigarette and unlocks Nick’s iPhone (he really thinks that his parents anniversary is a secret number. Ryan cracked it the day he got it). Nick has a handful of missed calls, too, a few from Sean, a couple from Tom, and finally one from his intern at the office. Ryan scrolls through the text messages, and taps a quick message out to his intern that Nick is ‘hungover, probably be in later’.

He’s almost done with his cigarette by the time he decides that checking his voice mail on Nick’s phone is less commitment than actually opening his own cell phone to do it, so he dials his own number and presses send. Ryan taps in his password and waits. The first three messages are from Sean, staring out by asking if he’s okay, and then by the third one Sean’s voice sounds tired, worried. The next two are from James, and Ryan presses his hand into his brow bone when he hears his voice.

_”So. I didn’t think I was doing that bad? And I guess I’m supposed to be hanging up the phone and telling you to fuck off. But, if you want to call me back... I get done with work around four.”_

Ryan hits save and leans up against the screen door, dragging another cigarette out of his pocket. He turns his head to the side and can see Nick, curled up on the end of his couch. He lights his cigarette and scrolls through Nick’s contact list until he sees ‘Sean Van Conrad’ show up and hits send. Sean picks up on the second ring.

“Scimeca, you fuckers better be okay,” Sean says in lieu of a greeting, and Ryan smiles for a second.

“Yeah, we’re alright.” Ryan says quietly, and he’s a little startled at how hoarse his voice sounds. “I just woke up,”

“Ryan,” Sean says, and he’s using that same tired tone that he was using in the voice mail  “James called Tom after he left the restaurant.” Ryan grips his hand around the cold metal of the balcony railing in an uneven rhythm. He’s not sure if he’s embarrassed, or disappointed, but he doesn’t like it. He can feel it settle heavy in his chest, and he breathes through it for a few minutes.

“I just.” Ryan starts, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He flicks his cigarette over the balcony and turns to lean against the railing instead of the sliding glass door, looking inside at the living room.  Nick’s shifted in his sleep a little, and Ryan has a fleeting thought of grabbing Nick’s big down comforter and covering him up. He thinks about how Nick sounded over the phone, how his voice was quiet and disappointed. He thinks about how Nick smiled when Ryan climbed in the car.  

“What happened, Ry?” Sean asks, and Ryan is glad that his voice is softer now, less sharp with worry. He sounds confused.  Ryan used to love that about Sean, about how he could always tell what Sean was feeling by his voice, but now it’s just frustrating.

“I couldn’t do it.” Ryan says quietly. “I don’t know. Nick called and,” Ryan pauses to take another drag off his cigarette. He rolls the filter between his fingers and watches the smoke. “He bought dinner and had this whole thing,” Even as he’s explaining Ryan knows that his voice is falling flat. It doesn’t matter what he says. He already fucked it up.

“Ryan,” Sean starts to talk again and Ryan cuts him off.

“He was. Disappointed. Or upset or something. He wanted me to come home.”  

Ryan listens to Sean take a breath and counts to ten.  “I thought you liked this guy,” Sean’s voice finally says and Ryan doesn’t know how to answer. “I thought you liked him,” Sean repeats, and his voice is firmer this time, the way it gets when he’s explaining things to him. “He’s a really nice guy, Ry. And he likes you. When he called Tom he was worried.”

Ryan pauses again, considering his options.

“Ryan,” Sean presses. “I know you’re still there, man.” Ryan takes a breath in and takes a last drag off his cigarette before he flicks it over the balcony like the last one.  Nick always yells at him when he does that. _How would you like it,_ Nick always says, _if you were walking along and somebody threw a cigarette at your head?_

“Yeah, I’m here.” Ryan finally answers, his hand on the handle to open the door. Nick shifts in his sleep again, though, and Ryan pauses.

“Maybe you should come over here,” Sean says quietly. “Call James from my place.” Ryan nods his head, even though he knows that Sean can’t see him. And he takes his hand off the door handle and wipes it over his face again instead.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll take a cab.” He answers, and he can hear Sean hum in agreement.

\---

 

James sounds happy when he answers the phone.  There’s a lot of activity going on in the background, and Ryan realizes that he doesn’t even know where he works.

“Ryan.” He says when he answers, like he’s been waiting all day for the phone to ring, even though he told Ryan to call after four, even though Ryan didn’t wait until then. “Ryan, hey, I’m just about to take a lunch break.” The background noise starts to fade out, and Ryan leans back against Sean’s couch, watching Sean try to work the coffee machine in the tiny kitchen.

“Hi,” He says, finally, his voice still quiet and unsure. He doesn’t know how he’s going to do this. He doesn’t know how to talk to James, he didn’t know how to talk to him the first time they met over drinks at the bar, and he wasn’t any better at it by the time they went to dinner. James scares him a little bit. James knows what he wants, and Ryan’s scared to think that maybe what he wants is him.

“I’m sorry.” He finally breathes out, running a hand over the creases in his jeans. Sean swears a little from the kitchen and something clangs into the sink. Ryan’s still listening to James breathe when Tom walks out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen.  James is talking, but it’s mostly falling flat to Ryan’s ears.  Tom moves Sean out from in front of the coffee machine and presses him back against the sink, and for half a second Ryan watches the way that Tom’s hands slip up under Sean’s shirt before he leans in to kiss him. “Brush your teeth, asshole.” Sean mumbles, but Ryan can see Sean fisting his hand in the front of Tom’s shirt to pull him into another kiss.

“....I was thinking tonight?” Ryan finally hears James say and he turns his face away from the kitchen and goes back to staring at his lap.

“Tonight?” Ryan asks carefully.

“Yeah. I could pick you up? We can just come to my place?” James is persistent, and Ryan thinks about the way Tom kissed Sean a second ago in the kitchen, thinks about the way that Nick puts his hands on girls’ hips when they go out, and the heavy feeling he gets in his gut every time it happens. He thinks about all the opportunities Nick would have had if something was really there, and he closes his eyes as he says “Yeah,” and promises that he’ll text James directions to Sean’s house later.

\---

 

James is great, he really is. He takes Ryan out to the movies and to the fancier restaurants (the ones Nick calls boring, lifeless); he's well dressed, confident, even good in bed, which Ryan discovers after a late night out at the bar with him, and suddenly it's like everything that Ryan had been wishing for, everything he'd pretended to see in his past relationships is actually right there in his hands. It makes sense in his head that if he keeps going through the motions, maybe he'll eventually start to want it.

The first morning that he comes home from James' place, Nick is in the kitchen eating cereal. He doesn't say anything when Ryan comes in, just washes his bowl and puts it back in the cupboard (he never leaves dishes out if he doesn't have to), and maneuvers himself tenderly around Ryan on his way out the door to work, like he's treading softly on a bruised foot.  
The next time he's in the apartment it's empty, and the time after that, and the time after that. It's so quiet and clean that Ryan wonders if Nick even lives there anymore, briefly indulges the stinging over dramatic thought that maybe he moved away and just left all his stuff. More likely they've reached some kind of silent understanding to exist in different circles, circles that have ceased to overlap, and he thinks he should probably be grateful for it. He isn't.

“Are you okay?” James asks him, an arm around his shoulders during another evening at some restaurant, with James' friends this time, cool, intellectually artistic people who make Ryan feel rough around the edges and out of place.  
“I'm okay,” Ryan says, and smiles a second too late. He feels distant and like he might have a headache coming on, hasn't been able to laugh at anyone's jokes all night and he wishes he had a beer on the table in front of him instead of this vinegar-y wine; he wonders when his life became such a joke.

“I'm okay,” he says again, and tries to believe it. He pretends he doesn't see the way the man to James' left rolls his eyes and quickly excuses himself to the bathroom.

\--–

Ryan goes home early the next morning and Nick is there, for the first time in weeks, sitting in the dining area with his laptop open in front of him. Nick looks nearly as bad as Ryan feels; there are circles under his eyes and his movements are jagged the way they get after he's been in the office too long without allowing himself to shut off.  Two months ago Ryan would have called him on it, forced him to take a break but today he just quietly sets his keys on the counter and slips off his shoes without looking at Nick on his way to the living room

“Maybe you should just fucking move in with him,” he hears Nick's laptop snap shut behind him, and turns to look.  
“This isn't a fucking storage place,” Nick says, his voice biting, looking to dig in, and Ryan can't, he _can't_ deal with this right now, so all he can do is stare. “You don't pay to keep your shit here.”

Ryan just stands there, tries to think of some way to respond and comes up blank. It was going to happen eventually. He knew it was, there was no point in pretending otherwise.  He presses his eyes shut and nods a tiny bit, starting to move past Nick towards the bedroom so he can just get his shit and go, find somewhere. Anywhere that he doesn’t have to listen to how much Nick hates him.

But Nick keeps pushing and pushing, and Ryan can’t even tell what he’s saying anymore. He just knows that it fucking _hurts_ and that there’s no way that Nick, of all people, can do this.

“Fucking okay!” he yells back finally. “I get it! Shut _up_.”

The words they yell don’t actually mean anything. It’s the tone and the tension and the fact that Ryan is going to have to leave _again_ that has him shaking so hard he can hardly stand. It’s Nick that leaves the room first, shoving a stack of CDs off the shelf on his way out so that they clatter to the floor. Ryan practically collapses onto the couch, and he digs his phone out of his pocket. His hands are trembling so badly he can barely punch the numbers in and he tries to take deep breaths while he waits for James to pick up on the other end.

“Ryan?” James is  frowning. Ryan can hear it through the phone. “I’m working. What’s going on?”

Ryan sucks in a heaving breath, trying not to lose it.

“Hi,” he says quietly. “Hi, I just. Can I- can I stay with you? Can you talk to me or  something, I’m really-”

James interrupts him, sounding annoyed, tired, and right then Ryan realizes that he’s sick of him. “Would you stop?” James says. “Jesus. This is all you do. Look, I tried okay? I liked you a lot. But all you do is have these goddamn crises over _nothing_ and. I’m at _work_ Ryan.”

“James,” Ryan starts weakly.  
“No, seriously. It’s fucking ridiculous. I take you out and I try to have fun and I introduced you to all my friends and all you do is mope around like I’m twisting your arm. Forget it, I can’t do it.” Ryan hears him suck in a breath. “I can’t do it, alright? You’ve got to sort your shit out.”

Ryan nods numbly into the phone, then says “Sorry. Sorry.” before he realizes that the line is dead; he’s been hung up on.  
He sets the phone down on his leg.

Nick comes in a second later and Ryan doesn’t even look up, just keeps staring at the floor. Silently he sits down next to him and before Ryan knows what’s going on, Nick is pulling him close, wrapping arms around him and hugging him tight.  
“I’m sorry,” Nick mumbles against his hair, and Ryan takes a ragged breath into his chest, inhaling the smell of Nick’s cologne and soft flannel against his face. “I’m sorry, I don’t want you to go.”

Ryan lets himself push forward against Nick’s body, lets himself grab Nick and hold as tightly as he can, half sobbing. Nick holds him close, the fingers of one hand digging into his back to keep him steady and the fingers of the other just brushing softly through the back of his hair.

“I don’t want you to go,” Nick whispers again, and Ryan just closes his eyes.

\----

For a little while things go back to a sort of even ground. Ryan doesn't try to call James again and James doesn't call him, but Nick is around a lot more and eventually they fall back into the comfort zone they were in before.  
Tom and Sean invite everyone out for drinks one night and Ryan goes even though he's not really feeling up to it. He sits in the corner of the booth across from Nick, who smiles at him over his PBR and dominates most of the conversation for the night, to the point where when Sean makes his announcement, Ryan nearly misses it.

“We were thinking we might do the married thing.”

Jon’s jumping out of the booth to give them both hugs, beaming at them and babbling about Spencer, and Nick is making indignant, protesting noises.

“This is because I started calling you Van Conrad, isn’t it?” Nick says, as though this is a real, serious problem, and Ryan laughs out loud, rolls his eyes when Nick shoots him a look.

“We don’t know when yet,” Sean says, beaming over at Tom. “Obviously you can all come. And then maybe we can do a party or something afterward.”

Ryan watches the gears in Nick’s brain start to turn at the word ‘party’, watches him get that sneak-casual look on his face, and he nearly heaves a sigh because he knows exactly what’s coming next.

“How are you going to do a party? Your place isn’t big enough.” 

Ryan makes a face at him across the table and kicks him in the shins.

“We can have it at our place,” Ryan says. “Don’t be an asshole, asshole. You want to anyway.”

Eventually everyone clears out, Jon first to go back to Spencer and the baby, then Tom and Sean, until finally it’s just Nick and Ryan hanging out getting drunk on a pitcher of pbr and Ryan is more glad than ever that he came, even if he can’t help the sadness that keeps threatening to grab hold of him if he thinks too hard about what this means. That his friends are all getting married, and he’s sitting here single and getting drunk with Nick like they’re still 20 years old.

 

\---

 

After the whole. Thing. With James, Ryan spends a lot of time at home.  He loses his job, again, and even when he keeps making noises about finding another job, Nick keeps shaking his head and telling him not to worry about it. Once or twice Ryan’s checked his bank account and found a few hundred dollars sitting in his checking account. Ryan feels guilty about it, so he uses the money mostly on things around the house, groceries and beer.

Nick’s working a lot lately, he has a few new big clients, and him and Shawn keep conference calling into New York at weird hours of the day and into the evening. Sometimes Ryan brings them lunch, or dinner, and those Naked Juices that Nick loves so much. Every time he does Nick grabs onto his wrist in thanks, and squeezes, looks him in the eye like he really means it, and for awhile it’s enough. Ryan’s happy to exist in this weird not-dating limbo with Nick. He’s happy to stay home and take Nick’s laundry to the laundromat and bring him food at work and let Nick take them out for drinks at night.  It’s enough, even if sometimes Nick brings somebody home or hooks up in the bathroom at the club (and Ryan does it too, once or twice) because more often than not they’ve been falling asleep on the couch as soon as they walk in the door to their condo.  Sometimes Ryan even wakes up with Nick’s legs over his lap, and. He’s okay with it.

Nick, finally, closes the deal with this client in New York after weeks and weeks of proposals and ironing out contracts that make Ryan’s head hurt, and Shawn takes them out to celebrate.  They take up the whole bar, and Nick wrangles free beer out of the owner, and Ryan spends the night pressed into the booth against Nick as more and more or Nick’s friends flood through the place.  Nick keeps his arm right behind Ryan’s neck all night, and when the celebration’s over, they take a cab home and Ryan passes out with his head on Nick’s shoulder.

 

\----

 

The next week, Nick books a hotel in New York and informs Ryan that they’re leaving in two days. Ryan gets online to look at the hotel and picks up the phone to call Sean.

When Sean answers the phone he sounds tired, and a little stoned, and Ryan spares a few seconds feeling bad for calling him about this.  Sean's about to get married in a few weeks, and he knows that there's been some weird shit happening with Tom and Jon and Spencer. Sean would tell him, though, if there was a problem, or if he couldn't talk.

Ryan links him to the hotel, and talks quietly into the phone from his bedroom.

"Are you worried?" Sean asks. His voice is still quiet, and Ryan can hear him flicking the metal lid of his zippo lighter in the background.

"I just don't know what it means." Ryan answers, clicking through the pictures of the room he’s going to be sharing with Nick. It’s modern and clean, with a big balcony and an open living room type area. It has Scimeca written all over it.

"How did he ask?" Sean inquires, and Ryan can picture him doing the exact same thing on his own shitty laptop. Ryan leans back on his bed and closes his computer (Nick's computer. His old macbook that magically appeared in Ryan's bedroom the same day that nick ordered new macbook airs for work.). He's thinking. He knows that sometimes what Nick says and what Nick does is different than what the Nick in his brain says and does.  That's why he has Sean. To balance it out.

"He said," Ryan answers carefully. "That he had tickets and a hotel room. And that I have to come with him because it’d be more fun if I were there."  He pauses and listens for noise in the condo.  He can vaguely hear Nick's music from the kitchen. It's something quiet and sad, something with piano and soft strings. Nick's been playing their album nonstop lately. It sounds warm, it sounds like home. Ryan can imagine Nick in the kitchen, humming along to the strings in the way he pretends that he doesn't do.

"So," Sean starts to say. He pauses to take a deep breath in, Ryan listens to the crackle of the weed and waits until he hears Sean exhale. "So, what do you think it means?"

“I don’t know.” Ryan answers softly, but he knows it doesn’t matter.

He’s going to go either way.

 

\---

 

Ryan wakes up in New York with his head tucked in tight against Nick's chest. Nick is asleep on his side with an arm slung around Ryan, his hand is curved over Ryan's hip, and Ryan feels something well up and sting behind his eyes. Nick is breathing steady and even, and his hand feels warm on his skin.

Ryan takes a few deep breaths in and tries not to move.  His chest hurts, and he can feel where Nick's hand is burning hot against his hip He reaches a careful hand up and curls it around Nick's face, pressing his fingers lightly against his cheek. Ryan doesn't think he's ever wanted anything more than he wants Nick, and he gives himself a second to breathe through it.

He could get up right now and they could pretend that this never happened. Nick is still asleep; Ryan could move over to the other bed, even, and Nick would never even know. It would be a lot easier, it would save him the potential embarrassment of whenever Nick wakes up later.

Nick’s eyelashes flutter in his sleep, just slightly, and Ryan knows that he isn’t that strong.

He leaves his fingers against Nick’s cheek just a second longer, against the slope of his cheekbone and the slight scruff there, knowing that this might be as close as he ever gets, before quietly tucking himself back in against Nick’s body and closing his eyes.  It’s easy to fall back asleep to the rhythm of Nick’s breathing.

 

\---

 

When he wakes up, Nick and all his shit is gone and there’s a half-assed note left for him on the table. Ryan tries not to let it sting too much, just gets up and goes about the morning slowly, sluggishly, like using too much energy might kick start his brain. He calls the airport first to have his return flight bumped up to the next one, and then Sean to ask if he can crash for awhile. Sean’s voice is sad, and Ryan tries to get off the phone as soon as he can. The last thing he does before grabbing a taxi to the airport is to text Nick.  
 _flight’s bumped up. dont wait 4 me._

He shuts his phone off after that without  waiting to see if Nick texts back.

 

\---

 

He ends up coming home two days later anyway, exhausted from sleeping on a couch and missing his own apartment.  

“You want to order in? From that vegan place you like?” Nick asks, just as Ryan is taking off his shoes and the door is barely closed. He’s able to recognize an attempt at reconciliation when he sees one, and he smiles faintly and nods.

They sit on either end of the couch watching TV while they eat, but every now and then Nick looks at him and smiles or laughs, his expression a little wary like he’s checking to see that Ryan is liking the show too.

Ryan smiles back at him, eating his dinner quietly.

 

\---

 

Nick starts working a lot more again; he tells Ryan that he has a couple of new projects or something that he’s had to take on, but fails to mention what they actually are, and he spends most of his nights working late at the office. Normally Ryan would wait up for him, but he doesn’t. It feels like too much.

When he isn’t at work, Nick is making arrangements for Sean and Tom’s after party. He walks around the apartment on his iphone talking to people in firm, authoritative tones. It seems like he hasn’t slowed down in years, and Ryan knows him well enough to know that that means something is up. By the time the day of the wedding actually comes around, Ryan is pretty much sick of manic, work obsessed, Nick Scimeca.

There’s no real wedding- just Tom and Sean coming out of the courthouse beaming and kissing when Jon says he needs documentation and holds up a camera. Ryan doesn’t cry even though he does feel his throat get tight watching them. When he glances over, Nick looks pale, his right hand gripping his left wrist tightly the way he does when he’s tense or upset.

“Hey, I’m just going to go make sure everything is getting set up,” Nick says, after pictures have been taken. He barely waits for anyone to even acknowledge it before he’s splitting off, and Ryan frowns. 

Ryan finds him back at the house about fifteen minutes later, in the kitchen getting drinks. His movements are quick and clumsy and god, Ryan _knows_ what that means. He’s been living with Nick long enough that they know each other’s tells by now.

Ryan sighs a little bit before walking into the kitchen, leaning up against the counter to watch him. “Nicky,” he starts, frowning.

Nick ignores him, pulling a bag of ice from the freezer and glancing around for something sharp with which to cut it open. Ryan opens his mouth to try again just as Nick talks.

“I’m just finishing up,” Nick says, his voice coming fast, his eyes anywhere but Ryan. “I figure everyone should be here in twenty even if Tom and Sean won’t be here for another hour or whatever since I’m assuming they went back to their place-”

“Nick.” Ryan interjects, worried. “Are you alright? Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine, yeah I’m fine.” He’s not though, Ryan can tell and it’s kind of freaking him out. He takes a step forward, while Nick continues to babble. “I just want to make sure everything’s good or whatever, I can’t throw a shitty party if they just got _married_ , I mean.” He gets the bag of ice open and pours it into the bucket he has sitting on the ground.

Ryan moves to put a hand on his shoulder and he feels Nick jerk back from the touch, and. That fucking hurts. More than it should, that fucking hurts.

“You’re doing that thing,” Ryan says, hoping his voice sounds more frustrated than pleading. “Your stupid Nick thing.” 

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’ve been fucked up since we came back from New York.” Ryan says, trying to keep himself from shouting. “You’re just working and working and then complaining about not having enough to do, which either means you did something shitty and you feel guilty, you’re avoiding something, or shit’s happening and you don’t want anyone to know.” _Just tell me,_ he wants to say. _Just tell me and I’ll help. I’m here._

Nick is silent for a moment, then stands up straight and looks at Ryan. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and Ryan is so frustrated and hurt and this is all so fucking stupid that he could cry.

“I’m fine,” Nick says.

Ryan opens his mouth to try one more time, then thinks about waking up alone in New York.

“Whatever. Fucking fine then,” he grits out. “God forbid you let me help you. I’m just going to go make sure they’re fine setting up the music and shit then. I’m assuming I won’t see much of you tonight.” He’s not going to cry. He’s not.

He turns and walks out before Nick can say anything else.

Ryan spends most of the party getting miserable drunk with Pete and telling himself silently that Nick is an asshole, that it doesn’t matter, that he’s an asshole and he can hate him. Then at the end of the night he sees Nick slip Tom an envelope of cash so that he can take Sean someplace, sees how grateful Tom looks and how Nick just shrugs it off and sends them out with hugs and all of that resolve crumbles.

 

\---

 

It’s been a couple of weeks since the wedding, and everything is the same and it's not like Ryan even cares, okay. That's what he told Sean, and that's what he's told himself. He's repeating it in his head the whole walk to the club, like a mantra, 'I don't care.' with every fall of his foot against the sidewalk.  Chicago is cold, and his hair is still wet from the shower he took earlier, and he imagines little ice crystals forming around the leftover moisture in his hair.  

(Sometimes, when Nick's bitching about the cold but still sitting outside on his snow covered patio, Ryan will reach over and crunch a strand of Nick's hair between his fingers where the cold has mixed with the stupid gel he always uses.)

The club is dark, and borderline tacky, but a friend of his and Sean's opened it up a few months ago. It's a gay club, and it's not like Ryan is the type of person who spends a lot of time in gay  
bars, but sometimes it's nice to go out with Sean somewhere that Nick would never step foot in under normal circumstances.  It's nice to go somewhere and dance and let somebody touch him, and it's nice to go out somewhere and not have to inevitably look to his left and see Nick with his hand on some girl's hip. It's sort of been his getaway since things started getting so fucked up.  

Ryan had made the decision to come on a whim, and it wasn't like he was completely lying to Nick.  He wasn't feeling well, Ryan never felt well when he was with Nick anymore.  It was getting to the point where walking out of his bedroom made him nauseated, weak at the knees. Sean was right though, there was no reason that Ryan shouldn't do this. It's been so long since Ryan had even touched somebody else.

The music playing through the speakers is so loud that Ryan had to yell his order at the bartender, and when he finally sits down he can feel a headache starting to throb behind his eyes.  Ryan can feel somebody watching him, and for a moment he looks down into his drink and swirls the ice around. Is it really worth it? Is it really worth all the time and energy that it would take for him to pick somebody up? He could spend a few hours here, a few hours with whoever it was back at the condo, and then have to deal with the awkward shuffle of 'get out, please, before my very straight roommate that I’m in love with comes home before work'.

Ryan lifts his head quickly after that, and finds his eyes on the bartender, who kept glancing his way as he poured a beer from the tap. "I have a break in thirty," Ryan watches his mouth say. Ryan raises an eyebrow and lifts his rum and coke to his lips, knocks back the rest of the drink, and slides the glass across the bar for a refill. "Double this time?" Ryan asks hopefully.

He remembers this guy, he remembers his eyes catching on him last time he was here with Sean.  He remembers because Sean had snorted into his beer when Ryan pointed him out.  He has dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and a small frame.  He always seems to be wearing some designer shirt, and his pants are just loose enough to keep you wondering. Last time Ryan was here, the guy had been wearing a hat.  

He looks just like every other hipster that Ryan’s slept with in Chicago.

Ryan taps out a text to Sean.  He half wants to reassure himself, half wants to talk himself up. He spends the next few minutes letting Sean know what’s up, before he feels a hand on his shoulder, and he turns around to see the bartender with two beers in his hand. "Mike." He says, holding a beer out for Ryan to take.

"Mike." Ryan repeats, taking a drink of the beer and standing up. The bartender- Mike, Ryan corrects himself- is talking, but Ryan is watching his mouth instead of listening to anything he says.

“Come on,” Mike says, and Ryan must have been nodding along to something, but he lets himself be pulled along towards the back anyhow.  They slip through an employee’s only sign, and Ryan feels himself relax a little as the music starts fading in volume the further they walk. They go through one last door, and Ryan has a moment of panic, he knows the club owner, is this the smartest decision? But he decides that he didn’t care as soon as Mike shuts the door behind him and clicks the lock, leans back against it. Ryan smiles, then, and takes one last swig of his beer before he sets it down on the nearest surface and steps forward.

Mike reaches out to pull him in, resting a hand on Ryan’s hip, and Ryan lets his eyes close and moves forward easily.  This part was easy, Ryan always forgets how simple this is.  He forgets how nice it is to kiss somebody, how easy it is to fall into the rhythm of it until he’s gasping. Ryan feels his breath catch and he moves his hand up to tangle in Mike’s hair, trying to pull him closer.

Mike laughed, and pushes Ryan away enough to look at him, enough to bring a hand between them and press his thumb to Ryan’s mouth.  Ryan goes easy after that, and he lets out a choked off moan before he steps back and drops to his knees.

 

\---

 

Ryan thinks he’s been in love with Nick as long as he can remember, or at least long enough that it’s stopped being a life-changing butterflies feeling and more of a solid weight in the bottom of his stomach.

When he wakes up with the bartender laying next to him, Ryan feels a familiar wave of nausea wash over him, and he can instantly feel the headache pounding behind his eyes. “My roommate will be home soon.” Ryan says hoarsely as soon as he feels the other man start to stir. “And I have work.”

He feels disgusting, he can smell the smoke and liquor leftover from the bar practically seeping out of his skin. His head is dizzy enough that he’s a little concerned that he may still be drunk, and he feels fucking cheap. He feels cheap, and then he feels like an asshole, making this guy leave as soon as they wake up.

It turns out not to matter much, because as soon as Ryan steps out of bed he finds himself definitely, definitely still drunk.    
“You have to leave.” He tells Mike, pressing a hand to his forehead and tossing what he assumes are Mike’s jeans onto the bed for him. “I’m sorry, just-”  
He sits on the edge of the bed while Mike shuffles quickly (not quickly enough) into his clothing.  
“I’ll, uh, call you?” Mike says, buttoning his shirt and standing in the doorway. He scrubs one hand through his hair in a way that reminds Ryan so much of Nick he thinks he might be sick.  
“You don’t have to say that,” Ryan sighs weakly. “Thanks.”  
When Mike is finally gone, Ryan crawls back under the covers and waits to hear the door open and close again. When he opens his eyes again it’s 2:00 and the apartment is still empty.  
He shuffles to Nick’s room and passes out in the bed.

 

\---

 

Nick finally comes home a couple of days later, looking shaken. He makes a beeline for his bedroom without stopping to say hi and locks the door behind him, and Ryan thinks _“Fine, whatever”_. He has to leave for work anyway- another shitty, minimum wage thing he picked up because Pete knew someone who was looking to fill a position fast.

When he comes home, Nick is still in the room. He steadfastly ignores it.

It’s not until two days after that that Ryan gets a call from Shawn.

“Hey,” he says when Ryan picks up, his voice concerned. “Have you seen Nick around? He hasn’t been into work in a while, and like. I dunno dude, that’s weird for him. He seemed stressed last time I saw him but that generally means he just gets more shit done.”

“He hasn’t been into work?” Ryan asks, frowning and glancing at Nick’s bedroom door. 

“Nah man, hasn’t called me or anything either. Is he there?”

“He’s here. I’ll tell him. Thanks, Shawn.”

Frowning, Ryan goes down the hall to Nick’s bedroom and raps on the door. 

“Shawn says you haven’t checked in and he’s worried about you,” Ryan calls through the door, then is quiet for a minute, listening for movement. He hears the bed creak. “Call him, asshole.”

He’s not worried.

He isn’t.

 

\---

 

Nick comes out of his room eventually, and Ryan is sick and tired of this whole thing. He’s been looking at apartment ads in the paper and the online classifieds lately, but there’s nothing he can afford. All he knows is that he has to figure something out because this isn’t healthy. It can’t be healthy to feel like this all the time.

About a week after Nick emerges from the bedroom (and, subsequently, a week of Ryan avoiding as much interaction with him as possible), a package comes in the mail. 

It’s a box with Ryan’s name on it, and he signs for it at the door, frowning in confusion. 

Nick is in the living room organizing his stupidly meticulous CD shelf (another thing Ryan is stupidly, irrationally fond of; Nick of all people, who gets the newest iphone before it’s even released, who’s obsessed with new tech, still collects CDs) when Ryan comes in, holding the box up. 

“Were you expecting something in the mail?” he asks, giving the box a bit of a shake. Nick leans back to look at him, and Ryan’s been noticing something different whenever he does that lately. Mostly it just makes him tired- all the mixed signals, the false starts, it’s too confusing. 

“It looks like your name on the box,” Nick says, shaking his head.

Ryan rips at the paper, muttering “I didn’t order anything,” to himself as he pulls out his keys to rip through the tape. When he gets the box open, it’s a pair of shoes, _nice_ shoes, that he had been looking at online last week. Expensive shoes.

Ryan opens the shoes up to read the label inside of the tongue, and presses his lips together when he realizes that they’re his size. Nick still has that look on his face, the same one that makes Ryan’s head start pounding right behind his eyes. 

“Did you buy me these?” Ryan asks, carefully. He wanted these shoes when he saw them. And he wants to put them on now. But he doesn’t understand what Nick’s doing. He doesn’t know why Nick bought him these, and he’s not stupid. Of course it was Nick. Who else would have known that Ryan wanted this exact pair of shoes, in this exact size, and sent them to this address? 

“Nope.” Nick says, and there’s a stupid smile on his face as he slides his collection of Death Cab for Cutie CDs onto the shelf in their proper space. Ryan shoves the shoes back into the box and throws it on the floor, walking towards his bedroom. 

 

_**\----Nick----**_

 

Girls are easy. Well not easy, exactly, because that sounds like some kind of a slip of the tongue. It’s not so much that they’re easy, it’s just more like that they’re everywhere. It’s not like Nick has to look for them.  
They’re always there, in glittery shoes with shiny lip gloss mouths and hair that catches the light the right way. It doesn’t matter where he is, the girls are always there. The dark skinned one in red. The brunette with the pale shoulders. The blonde whose laugh is a little too tinny for her face. It doesn’t matter.

It’s always the same anyway.

Nick will pick one up and bring her home and when she’s underneath him, he’s always careful with his hands, because even after so many there’s still the illusion of fragility, of softness that he might break. Foreignness under his fingertips. And maybe it’s _sex_ that’s easy, because it never seems like they finish unsatisfied. It’s not even like Nick finishes unsatisfied, really. Biologically everything works fine.

He doesn’t even have to worry about mornings after any more. His apartment betrays no secret need for a woman’s touch. All his dishware is chromatic and matching, his furniture is all from the same set. There is absolutely nothing that asks to be straightened out or saved and (save for a few), she always understands what exactly the relationship was.

She doesn’t expect him to call and most of the time he doesn’t. It works out fine for everyone.  
And later, when she’s gone, Nick can call and brag to Jon.

Just so that everyone remembers. Just to keep everyone in the loop.

 

\---

 

Nick is the most well connected person he knows, but even aside from that, he’s got his close friends. Everyone’s kind of paired off lately, which is fine, so now it’s not just Jon and Tom and the rest of the Chicago crowd. De'Mar went down to New York a few years ago with his girlfriend, and so did Mikey. Pete’s only in town about half the time, but Nick keeps in touch with him still. Now the crowd runs more like Tom and Sean (Nick jokes that neither of them could find girls and that’s why they had to stick with each other. Nobody finds it funny. Not even him, really.) and Jon and his girl Spencer. They got introduced through some pre-Sean boyfriend of Tom’s and she was knocked up within a couple of months. It was kind of a recipe for disaster, if you ask Nick (no one does), but it seems to have turned out okay for them.

Sometimes Nick listens to Jon talk about her like she’s the reason the sun stays lit and he thinks.

Mostly he doesn’t.

And then of course there’s Ryan. There’s been Ryan since they were nineteen. He officially moved in last August after a few months of sleeping on Nick’s couch. There was a spare room and he didn’t have anywhere else to go and Nick is nothing if not good to his friends, despite what anyone says. Ryan’s the one who stills goes out with him the most often, and Sean says it’s good for both of them to have someone around: Nick so that he doesn’t forget he’s not the only person on the face of the earth, and Ryan so that he doesn’t burn anything down. It’s mostly a joke, but he does like it. Having Ryan there. It makes it feel more like home, or like something anyway.

That’s another thing he doesn’t think about.

 

\---

 

“So,” Sean is saying. They’re all at the bar, even Jon, who managed to get a night out of the house. He keeps checking his phone and grinning, like he can’t manage to be away from Spencer for more than a couple of hours.  Any time Nick manages to catch his gaze he rolls his eyes to show his disapproval.

“So we were thinking we might do the married thing.”

Nick almost chokes on his beer.

“What?” he says incredulously.

This time it’s Sean who rolls his eyes, and bumps a shoulder with Tom beside him.

“We're going to get married. Not like a wedding or anything, but like, we could maybe scrape some money together for rings and the courthouse, right? Why the hell not.”

“This is because I started calling you Conrad, isn’t it.” Nick accuses. He really should have thought that one through better. “From now on I’m always answering your calls with Van Vleet. Why would you get _married_ what even is the _point_?”

His concerns fall to deaf ears.  Jon has already jumped up and is wrapping them both in hugs, grinning wide and warm.

“Spencer and I,” he says. “We’ve talked about that. But I want to do the real wedding thing for her, so we’re going to wait. Some day though. Dudes, that’s _awesome_.”

“You’re like more into it than I am,” Sean laughs, clapping a hand to Jon’s shoulder. “Thanks. Thank you. We don’t know when yet, but like. Obviously you can all come. And then maybe after we can do a party or something.”

“How are you going to do a party?” Nick asks casually, ignoring the face Ryan makes at him from across the table. “Your place isn’t big enough.”

Tom clears his throat awkwardly.

“We can have it at our place,” Ryan says, kicking Nick under the table. “Don’t be an asshole, asshole. You want to anyway.”

Which he _does_ , fine. But just because he’s good at it, and not because anyone is getting married. Besides it would be nice if they asked instead of assuming. He’s going to have to start making Ryan stay at home. Nick Scimeca is not anyone’s party bitch.

“I’m not anyone’s party bitch.” he says indignantly.

“We know.” Jon says kindly, but they’re already talking about what weekend Sean can take off work.

 

\---

 

“They could have just asked,” Nick tells Ryan, later, in the cab. He might be a little bit drunk. Mostly he’s just annoyed with all of his friends who seem to be intent on doing stupid shit like getting married and having babies before they’re even thirty.

Ryan nods thoughtfully. “You’re always offering to throw parties for people though Nicky,” he points out. “They were just cashing in their chips. Besides, it’ll be fun. You can get catering from that place you like and we can do some kind of photo wall or something on the way in.”

Nick goes quiet, considering it.

“Everyone has to dress up?” he asks finally.

Ryan grins. “We can even try to get Tom in to a nice jacket,” he answers.

 

\---

 

Nick has to go to New York to meet with a new WCST client and he knows that Ryan hasn’t gotten out of the house in a while, so obviously he makes him come with. Nick gets bored when he has to go somewhere by himself anyway.

“We’re going to miss our flight!” Nick calls from the doorway, glancing at his watch while Ryan runs around throwing things into his suitcase and generally being disorganized.

“I’m coming!” he calls from his bedroom. Nick sees him run from the bedroom to the bathroom and back, carrying a bunch of shit.

“Ryanj oh my god I’m never bringing you anywhere.”

“I’m here, I’m here.” He’s trying to do his suitcase up standing.

They make the flight with five minutes to spare, and when they take off, Ryan breathes a sigh of relief.

“See,” he mumbles. “I told you we’d make it.”

 

\---

 

While they’re in New York Ryan buys a little party planning notebook from some stationary store he stopped into while Nick was in meetings. He likes to pretend he’s not as much of a compulsive shopper as Nick, but it’s a lie- he also gets really into the stuff he buys. They have a whole secret drawer at the apartment filled with different polishes and oils that he rubs onto his shoes. It’s ridiculous and Nick will make fun of him for it until the day he dies.

Ryan’s appointed himself co-party planner, which means that no matter how many times Nick insists that he doesn’t need to use the stupid agenda thing, he has a _phone_ for that, Ryan refuses to get rid of it.

“So you have to call the catering people when we get back,” Ryan is saying. He isn’t as stoned as Nick is, he’s still trying to get them to talk business. “Sean said that they’re probably gonna do it in like, two weeks so you really have to. You’re lucky you’re you or they wouldn’t even do it on that kind of notice.”

Nick groans and turns over, which lands his face pretty much directly in Ryan’s shoulder.

“You’re talking too much.” he mumbles around a mouthful of Ryan’s shirt. “I hate you when I’m stoned and you’re not.”

“You never hate me Nicky Scimeca,” Ryan tells him, and slides a little further down the bed so that he’s not sitting up quite as much anymore, which is fine with Nick. If he’s blazed and sloth-like, Ryan should be too. That’s just how this has to be. Everything is kind of pleasantly fuzzy and slow moving, and Nick mumbles something in reply and brings a heavy hand up to card through Ryan’s hair.

Ryan laughs, then sort of clears his throat. “You’re going to fall asleep in my bed, dick.” he says quietly.

“Probably.” Nick agrees. His eyes already feel heavy and Ryan is warm. What else is he supposed to do? He’s too out of it to think anyways.

Ryan goes stiff for a second and Nick’s hand drops from petting his hair, then he sighs and relaxes. Nick is already half asleep, too gone to pay attention to how awake Ryan is.  The last thing he does before shutting his eyes fully is to sling an arm around Ryan and hold on. Then he lets himself ebb off to sleep.

 

\---

 

It takes Nick a minute to remember where he is when he wakes up. The bedsheets don’t feel like his and the pillow smells too stiff and clean. From the discomfort in his legs he can tell that he must have fallen asleep without changing into pajama pants or anything, which means his shirt is probably wrinkly as fuck. The mattress shifts a little underneath him, signaling movement, and to his left someone rolls over and tucks themselves against him. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, just lets the person settle and fall back asleep. He does too, for a second, before all of a sudden he remembers where he is, who he’s with, and he feels his stomach bottom out.

As carefully as he can Nick removes himself from underneath Ryan and gets out of the bed, listening to the way his pulse beats in his ears. He grabs some clothes with shaky hands, not caring which he picks out, balling them all up together and shoving them under his arm before heading to the bathroom and locking himself inside. He drops the clothes on the floor at his feet and holds onto the counter, closing and opening his eyes tight a couple of times before running the water for a shower.

“Shit,” he whispers. “Fuck.” He feels like he’s got something stuck in his throat.

He’s got the smell of Ryan’s hair in the morning and what it felt like to fit against his side all over his skin, covering him up and filling his lungs. Nick stands in the shower and lets the hot water run over his face and he focuses on breathing and on not thinking at all. He isn’t scared, he keeps telling himself, because there’s nothing to be scared of. There’s just him.

He dresses quickly when he gets out of the shower, fumbling stupidly with the buttons on his shirt and burying his face into a soft hotel towel to dry off the steam clinging to his eyelashes. Ryan’s still asleep when he opens the bathroom door, thankfully, so he packs the few things he took out of his suitcase over the course of the weekend and leaves a note.  


Had to go to meeting after all. Will meet u at airport.  
-n

Ryan will probably be pissed he packed up and left without him, but it’ll be fine. He’ll just end up going shopping or something and Nick can hang out until their flight is supposed to leave and it’ll all work out. Ryan will probably be glad to avoid an awkward conversation too.

 

\---

 

Ryan must be really, really pissed though, because around noon Nick gets a text saying that he’s had his flight bumped up and will be staying with Sean for the week. He doesn’t know what to do about that. He’s always upset when Ryan’s pissed at him, especially when he knows it’s because he’s done something shitty. Ditching out on him was shitty. Lying to him was shitty. And the apartment feels empty and too big when Nick has to be in it by himself.

“ _ok._ ” He taps back, deliberating over asking whether or not Ryan’s upset and then eventually just hitting send the way it is. He knows the answer anyway, and the ensuing conversation would make him feel too much, give him a headache.

He’s still got too much time to kill and nothing to do. A little bit too much time with himself given the circumstances.

He goes to a strip club and pays for a lap dance and doesn’t think about how this makes him a shitty person, too. Instead he just tells himself that this is why he was feeling off, because he needed to relax like this. He’s a pretty good liar.

He spends the plane ride back drifting in and out of sleep. His whole body feels heavy, like he’s trying to move under water, and when he closes his eyes he’s able to slip out of it for a couple minutes at a time. When he gets home and unlocks the apartment it’s empty, and he doesn’t bother flicking the lights on. Instead he just goes to his room and opens his laptop at his desk, spends the rest of the night working on things that he doesn’t even have to start until tomorrow afternoon.

 

\----

 

Ryan comes back on Wednesday.

During the time he’s been gone Nick’s barely been at the apartment anyway, slept at the office on Tuesday, and has finished two sites that he had the whole month to work on. He’s starting to feel a little bit better: not sick and panicked when he has something to focus his time on. He can go back to normal, a little bit.

 _I thought you were staying the week,_ Nick almost says when Ryan walks through the door, but doesn’t. He doesn’t want to. Instead, he looks up from his macbook and asks “You want to order take out? From the vegan place you like?” and takes it as forgiveness when Ryan smiles a little bit and nods, despite the tired circles around his eyes from sleeping on Sean and Tom’s couch.

 

\----

 

It’s easy for Nick to just fill up his time. He’s got a million projects going anyway, a business of his own to run, multiple partnerships, investments.  Even when there isn’t work immediately available he can find it if he looks. 

So he looks.

The party prep takes up some of his time too. Despite the weird way it sits in his chest, that one of his best friends is getting married, that the other has a baby (and another on the way, he’s just learned. Because apparently Jon Walker doesn’t know how to use a fucking condom), it’s an outlet. He talks to the catering company that he likes, the one he’s been trying to get to partner with 44th Ward, finds some friends to set up a DJ booth in a corner of the apartment, makes sure he can afford enough booze to get them started. He even designs invitations, despite the fact that Sean’s said it’ll only be the four of them invited to go along to see them actually come out of signing the papers: Jon, Spencer, Ryan and Nick. He can still do invitations for the after party. It makes it more official.

Ryan helps where he can, but when Nick’s in work mode he mostly knows better than to try and get involved. It helps his brain to focus, being able to have everything a certain way, having the responsibility of making sure everything goes smoothly.

Sean and Tom get married on a sunny Friday afternoon in September. They don’t dress up, but Tom’s plaid shirt is clean, his hair brushed, and Sean is wearing one of Nick’s blazers over his v-neck. It’s a little bit short in the arms (his shoulders are wider than Nick’s), but no one says anything. When they come out of the courthouse they’re gripping hands.

“Come on,” Jon grins, raising his camera a little bit. “You’d better kiss and make it official.”

Tom laughs and moves to flip him off, but Sean just grabs his hand again fast, grips the sides of his shirt and pulls him in. Tom frames his face with his hands and kisses him back as Jon snaps pictures. It’s happy. It feels warm and right, seeing Tom grin like that and how Sean’s mouth mimics it, how their wedding bands are matching gold.

Nick goes back to the apartment ahead of everyone else to get ready for the party, and to try and get rid of the dryness in his throat. The rightness of everything was making him feel crowded and hot- like everyone was looking at him, like he had something under his skin that wasn’t supposed to be there and something missing from his chest that was.

Ryan gets there just as the food arrives, and he looks worried, coming up to Nick in the kitchen where he’s checking on drinks. People are supposed to be showing up in half an hour, so twenty minutes, Nick figures, before he can stop moderating and start drinking. Start drinking and maybe pick someone up, and.

“Nicky,” Ryan frowns, while Nick starts hiking cases of beer out of the fridge, and grabbing the bag of ice out of the freezer.

Nick ignores him, finishes putting things into the ice bucket until Ryan puts a hand on his shoulder, fingers curled in just slightly so that Nick can feel the hard edges of his blunt nails through the material of his shirt, just enough to make him still completely.

“I’m just finishing up,” Nick says. “I figure everyone should be here in twenty even if Tom and Sean won’t be here for another hour or whatever since I’m assuming they went back to their place-”

“Nick.” Ryan interrupts. “Are you alright? Are you feeling alright?”

“Fine.” Nick answers, licking his lips. “Yeah I’m fine. I just want to make sure everything’s good or whatever, I can’t throw a shitty party if they just got _married_ , I mean.”

Ryan’s hand is still on his shoulder and Nick takes a step back, feeling crowded again. He doesn’t _get_ it, this is never a problem for him, he doesn’t understand. 

“You’re doing your thing,” Ryan says, and he sounds angry, maybe. Or frustrated. “Your stupid Nick thing.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’ve been fucked up since we came back from New York.” Ryan says, his jaw tense. And yeah, Nick’s starting to feel like shit again. “You’re just working and working and then complaining about not having enough to do, which either means you did something shitty and you feel guilty, you’re avoiding something, or shit’s happening and you don’t want anyone to know.”

Nick can feel the wall coming up in his head and he lets it, takes another step away from Ryan, from the frustration and confusion and the desire to help. 

“I’m fine,” he says firmly, giving Ryan a smile that he knows doesn’t reach his tired eyes. He’s falling apart, really. He’s panicked and confused and fucking lost- his chest hurts to breathe and when he lets himself think too hard everything feels suspiciously too close to wanting. Too close to uncertainty, to having no fucking clue what’s going on, which are all just other words for fear. Nick doesn’t do fear. He doesn’t do being lost.

Ryan looks like he’s going to press again, he opens his mouth once before shutting it.

“Whatever. Fucking fine, then.” Ryan says. “God forbid you let me help you.”  It surprises Nick, that he looks hurt. “I’m just going to go make sure they’re fine setting up the music and shit then. I’m assuming I won’t see much of you tonight.”

He turns and walks out as Nick leans against the counter and tries to swallow down the swell of _“No, stay, wait.”_ that’s threatening to make its way past his lips.

 

\----

 

Tom and Sean go to a B&B somewhere out in the country after the party, which Nick pays half of. Even with Tom’s savings he didn’t have enough to cover a whole weekend away, but he wanted to take Sean somewhere. Nick didn’t make him ask for it, just slipped him an envelope of cash before he walked out of the apartment the night of the party. “Thanks, man.” Tom said quietly, and the gratitude in his voice was good enough.

Being around Ryan has made Nick jumpy, guilty. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to him anymore, but there’s a pain in his chest that won’t go away, a constant headache in the front of his skull. Ryan, for his part, has taken to avoiding him again. Nick’s not sure if that’s a good thing, or part of the problem in and of itself.

Pete’s decided that he wants to revamp Angels and Kings, so Nick spends the week at the office making calls to make sure it happens, redesigning the site, and keeping Pete on speedial to make sure he’s aware of what’s going on. Nick can do everything from his office, even if it isn’t WCST work. That way he can still overlook any of the work going on there at the same time as dealing with A&K, and it also means that he doesn’t have to go home. Ryan hasn’t come by for lunch the way he used to in weeks.

Finally, after Nick’s head has been pounding for three days straight despite any painkillers he downs, he decides to make an effort. He calls Ryan from work, tries to ignore that he’s actually nervous, Jesus.

“Nick,” Ryan answers the phone. He sounds tired. Hoarse, even.

“Hey,” Nick says. “Hey, so. I was thinking like.” _I was thinking that I’m sick of avoiding each other and I miss my best friend. I miss you._ “I was thinking like, I could take off work early, if you wanted and we could get drinks or something. We haven’t in awhile, right.”

The line is silent for a second.

“I’m not feeling well,” Ryan says quietly. “I think I’m sick. I was just going to take some Advil and pass out.”

Nick is kind of desperate here, stupidly desperate for no reason and he hates this. He hates that Ryan is avoiding him, hates that he can’t even figure out what his own problem is, hates that he’s lost his best friend and he can’t even remember when or why.

“I could stay in,” he suggests quickly. “I could get take out on my way home and we could watch netflix.”

“Nick,” Ryan sighs. “I just want to sleep. Maybe you should stay at Minardi’s tonight?”

Nick feels sick too, all of a sudden. Like his stomach has dropped to his feet. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Hope you feel better.” He hangs up the phone.

Johnny’s apartment is nice, not as nice as his but close. He seems to sense that something’s off because he doesn’t suggest they go out or anything, instead he pulls out his stash and they spend the night getting high enough that Nick can’t remember his own name. He passes out on the pull out couch in his clothes.

The next morning when he wakes up, his headache is back tenfold. It pulses through his temples and makes its way all the way down through the rest of his face. His clothes stink like weed and the expensive beer he kept drinking even after he felt like he was going to be sick. Home. He just wants to go home and shower and change and maybe fall asleep in his own bed for another hour before he goes back in to work.

The drive is quiet because it’s so early, and the silence makes him feel boxed in. He hooks his iPod up to the dock and clicks one of the playlists that Ryan made him a while back: the ambient one with all the Lykke Li and his favourite songs off of OK Computer. By the time he pulls into his parking spot the sky has started to lighten up a little bit  and he’s feeling marginally less disgusting.

He tips his head back against the mirror in the elevator on his way up, closes his eyes and breathes slowly.

He’s just starting to dig around his pockets for his keys when he hears a door shut quietly in the hallway and glances up on reflex. Ahead of him, a skinny dark haired guy in a plaid shirt is turning away from the apartment at the end of the hall. 

Nick’s apartment.

The guy nods at him on his way by, and Nick is too busy trying to figure out what’s going on to return the slight smile he gives him. He hears the elevator doors ding and then shut, and then he’s alone in the hallway.

Someone just came out of his apartment.

He pulls his cellphone out quickly, punches in Sean’s cell number and walks to the opposite end of the hallway, away from his place. The phone keeps ringing and ringing. Finally, just as Nick’s about to hit end someone picks up.

“Nick?” Sean groans. “It’s fucking early, what do you want.”

“Is Ryan at your place or something?” he asks, hearing the way his voice sounds panicked and hating it. If Ryan is on Sean’s couch or something then it just means he was sick and needed someone to watch out for him. It would mean that someone might have just robbed Nick’s apartment, but-

“No?” Sean says, sounding annoyed. In the background Nick can hear Tom grumbling to ask who it is. “Why would he be here.”

“I’m at my place. And someone just. Someone just came out of my apartment.” Nick presses the palm of his hand to his eyes. “And I don’t want to go in, I thought maybe-”

“Oh.” Sean says. And then, a little sympathetically. “Nick.”

Nick’s mouth is already moving too fast though, trying to catch up with his racing thoughts, trying to drown out the pounding in his head. 

“He was sick.” he says, and it sounds like a plea. “He told me he was sick.”

There’s the rustle of sheets on the other end of the line, then the sound of Sean knocking something over, probably looking for his glasses and getting out of bed, still half asleep, while Nick stands in the hallway to his apartment and tries to figure out why he feels so sick and angry and hurt. Like everything is just wrong.

“Nick, I think you already figured out why someone was there. You want me to spell it out for you?” Sean sighs finally, though not unkindly. “Because I really don’t want to. If you don’t want to go in you can come use the shower here before you go to work.” 

Nick stays on the line silently, glancing back towards his apartment and trying to organize his feelings.

“You don’t get to be pissed at Ryan.” Sean says through the phone. Nick wonders sometimes when his friends came to know him so well.

“Why would I fucking care,” He snaps automatically.

Sean makes a frustrated noise. “You do.”  he says, his voice gaining a frustrated, protective edge. “And you don’t get to fucking be mad at him for getting laid when you go out and pick up girls all the time.” 

Nick’s head is feeling worse and worse, like he might throw up or something and he really really doesn’t want to talk about this, but Sean doesn’t seem to want to stop.

“If you would stop being such an idiot maybe you could figure this out instead of being so miserable all the time. It’s not my place to talk about it?” Sean says. “But it’s been a long time since he’s been with anyone. I don’t think he’s ever even brought someone home since he moved in with you. You’re making him miserable with you.”

“Shut up,” Nick says, closing his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Whatever your complex is, get over it and figure your shit out. But quit taking it out on him because he’s tired. And I’m tired of all your ‘ _no homo_ ’ bullshit and of seeing my best friend so messed up over you.”

Nick ends the call.

He goes back down the elevator, hands shaking, and gets back in his car. He can’t breathe: like his chest and throat and airways are closing up, and he thinks that he might be crying. He doesn’t even remember the last time he cried. The steering wheel feels cool against his forehead when he leans against it and closes his eyes, but no matter how hard he tries this isn’t going away. He knows now, is painfully aware of himself; it’s crushing down on him too hard and there isn’t anywhere for him to go.

Suddenly all he has is these images of Ryan. Ryan meeting him at the office for lunch, already knowing what Nick wanted to eat; Ryan’s hand around his wrist at a club, laughing into his ear because they’re both so fucking drunk that they can’t remember the name of the song that’s playing;  Ryan lying on his back in Nick’s bed, eyes closed while he listens to Nick ramble on about whatever new project he wants to start up. Then the other ones, the ones Nick hadn’t let himself look at before, hadn’t let himself pay attention to. The set of Ryan’s mouth as yet another girl walks out of Nick’s room in yesterday’s makeup; his defeated posture and false smile while Nick laughs about his mother inviting them both over for dinner “ _My brother and his wife, and you and I. Can you imagine?”_. The circles under Ryan’s eyes ever since they got back from New York. He’s not sure which set hurts worse.

Nick doesn’t want to be Chicago’s best young gay entrepreneur. He doesn’t want to be anything’s best gay anybody. He doesn’t want people to define him based on one stupid, insignificant, underdog thing. Nick doesn’t play underdog, and he doesn’t do pity or charity or handouts. All he wants is to be Nick Scimeca, and if he’s the best anything, he wants to be recognized for getting there. He doesn’t want to have to do the whole thing that goes along with it, he’s never wanted it- he just wants to be Nick, and he just wants to be good.

Being scared or disadvantaged or part of some crusade doesn’t fit into that, so that’s just not who he is. Not who he’s ever been and not, as he decided early on, who he’s going to be. So it just doesn’t factor into his life, and that’s fine. It’s not even something he thinks about.

And he gets that Sean and Ryan and Tom, they all think he’s fucking shitty for it. They all think he’s got some kind of a complex when that isn’t even it. He sees the way Sean gets up in arms around him sometimes, as if he’s going to start a fucking lynching party or something, and Nick, he’s never cared about what anyone else is doing in his life. It’s ironic, he thinks, that everyone can sit around and talk about how self-obsessed he is and they still all fail to get that any issues he takes with anything are 100% personal. 100% him.

It just isn’t who he is.

Except that sometimes he feels so wrong in his own skin that he can hardly think, and that’s when he works the most. When just being who he thinks he is gets too hard, it’s easier to zone everything else out until he has his head back enough to try again. The girls too. He keeps looking and looking for something, and he still hasn’t found it.

He keeps telling himself that he hasn’t.

He’s wondering if Ryan knew that guy before or if he just met him, if he went out specifically to pick him up or if they’re dating. He’s trying to stop caring so goddamn much about it.

 

\---

 

He goes to visit Jon.

Ever since Tom introduced Nick to Jon Walker when they were sixteen and fifteen, respectively, Nick knew that Jon was a paragon of wisdom. He attributes it to smoking a lot of pot and some kind of inner peace that Jon was born with. Over the years he’s yet to have this belief disproved, though Jon mostly gave up weed with Spencer when she got pregnant the first time. 

Jon and Spencer live in a small rented condo on the cheaper side of town. It isn’t exactly nice, but they wanted something bigger than an apartment after they had Cash, and they’ve been working to do the best with it they can. It isn’t anywhere Nick would live, but it feels homey, and he likes that. When Nick calls beforehand, Jon tells him that Spencer just went out and he’s home alone with baby Cash, so as long as Nick doesn’t mind he can come over any time.

Jon greets him at the door with a baby on one arm, and hugs Nick with the other. “Hey, man.” he says. “I haven’t seen you in a while, you’ve been busy.” he leads them out through the foyer, stepping over shoes and boxes of baby things. Cash watches Nick over his dad’s shoulder, big brown eyes fascinated, and a string of drool hanging from his tiny mouth.

Jon grabs two beers and a sippy cup out of the fridge on his way through the kitchen, then sits Cash down in his bouncer thing while Nick stands around nervously and waits.

“Okay,” Jon says finally, sitting himself down on the couch and passing Nick his beer. “Sorry. Cashey just got up from a nap otherwise I’d have put him down when I knew you were coming.” 

“I still can’t believe Spencer let you name a kid that,” Nick says, shaking his head as he cracks his beer open and takes a sip. He’s trying to get comfortable, to let himself forget why he’s here. Nick isn’t exactly the best at asking for help.

“Well to be fair, his name is technically Jonathan,” Jon grins. “But I made her promise to let me pick a middle name before I told her what it was, and it would be weird to be calling him like, Jon Jr or something, so.” He laughs. “Jonathan Cash Walker.” He reaches down to bounce the seat on the floor and in return Cash giggles.  “I’m trying to get her to let me name the next one Texas Ranger, so that when we fill out forms for school they’ll put his last name in front of his first. Get it?”

“Oh my god, you’re such an idiot. Your kids are going to hate you.”

“They won’t!” Jon protests. “My babies love me, I’m the best dad ever!”

Nick just rolls his eyes and brings the bottle back to his lips, watching Cash flail his arms around and tug at the toys that are tied to his chair. 

“So what’s up,” Jon says after a second. “You sounded upset on the phone. You’ve been working non stop. You gonna tell me what’s going on, Scimeca?”

Nick tips his head back against the couch and closes his eyes, trying to focus on just breathing for a second, in and out and in and out a couple of times.

“I think I’m like. I think I’m like. Gay.” Even in his head he can hear the capital “G”.  “Or whatever, and.” he can feel his face heating up, and his words are coming so fast he can barely keep up with them. He keeps his eyes shut so that he doesn’t have to see Jon’s face. “And I don’t know what I’m doing but I just feel sick all the time and I just want someone to not fucking look at me like I’m an asshole for not just getting over myself and dealing with whatever this is because I _can’t_.”

Jon’s silent next to him, listening, so Nick keeps going.

“That’s the first time I’ve even said it and. Like. I’m supposed to pretend that this isn’t a big deal because it wasn’t for Tom or Sean or Ryan like they all just accepted that that was who they were and it was fine and it didn’t matter and Sean thinks I’m a dick and no one fucking _gets it_ and it’s _hard_.”

“Okay,” Jon says quietly. “Slow down man, okay. Nick, you’re right. That’s a big deal. That’s a huge fucking deal.”

Nick sucks in a shaky breath, feeling a little relieved, but keeps his eyes closed. Next to him, Jon sighs.

“I’m sorry that you’re trying to deal with that and they don’t get it, dude. It’s hard right?”

“So fucking hard.” Nick answers. He opens his eyes and swallows. “I don’t want to do it. I don’t want it to be who I am.” His chest hurts, like he cracked it open and is spilling everything that he kept locked away out on to Jon’s living room floor. “I don’t want to have to talk about it with my parents or work or anything, I don’t want to deal with it. And they act like it was so easy for them, and like they’re pissed that it isn’t easy for me. As if I’m trying to make it hard.”

“Did you tell them?” Jon asks.

Nick shakes his head. “I didn’t tell anyone. That’s the first time I said it. Sean just. He knew or something. I don’t know. He yelled at me about it.”

Jon frowns and takes a gulp of his beer thoughtfully.

“Sean doesn’t really yell unless he’s got a personal stake in something.”

“Ryan.” Nick says quietly.

Jon doesn’t answer, but watches him like Nick is supposed to continue.

“Ryan,” Nick sighs. “He thought I was going to be a dick to Ryan because he lied and told me he was sick and instead went out and like. Picked someone up.”

“Okay.” Jon says. He’s thinking, Nick can tell. “Okay.”

“I feel sick all the time,” Nick tells him. “Really sick, like I’m going fucking crazy. I can’t eat or sleep or breathe and my chest hurts and my head hurts.” He rubs hands over his face. “I can’t do anything and I’m miserable.”

“Nick,” Jon says carefully. “You know that it doesn’t have to mean it’s _you_ , right? You’re still just Nick.”

“I’m _not_ though,” Nick exclaims. “Not to everyone else.”

“We don’t think of Tom and Sean that way,” Jon points out. “Or Ryan. Right? They’re still just them, they just happen to be into dudes. It would be the same thing. It’s hard. I’m sorry it’s hard, dude. And obviously I don’t get it, but like.” he sighs. “Sometimes life just happens and you’ve just got to deal, right?”

Jon glances at the baby in the bouncer and seems to zone out for a second, his expression softening considerably. 

“Obviously something happened to make it click in your head. Now you just have to decide if you’re going to keep letting yourself be miserable, or if you’re going to go after what you want.”

 

\---

 

Nick allows himself a whole four days of locking himself in his room to be miserable, during which he listens to nothing except the playlists that Ryan’s made him over the years and doesn’t allow himself to work at all. If he’s going to get over this and move on, he figures he should be allowed to let the world fall apart around him for a couple of days.

Ryan starts knocking after the third day.

“Shawn says you haven’t checked in at the office in more than twelve hours and he’s worried about you.” he calls through the door. “Text him or something, asshole.”

Nick, as much as it hurts to do so, ignores him.

By the fourth day, Nick’s mostly gotten sick of his own company. Wallowing doesn’t particularly suit him he’s decided, now that it’s out of his system. Instead of putting on sweats when he gets up he finds a nice pair of jeans and a button up, and opens the blinds up to let the light back into his room. Feeling slightly more like himself, he opens his laptop, clicks out of the game of Tetris he’s been playing for three days, and instead starts to plan.

\---

 

Nick is trying to alphabetize their CD shelf when Ryan comes into the living room holding a brown cardboard box, frowning like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Were you expecting something in the mail?” he asks, holding the package up. Nick leans back on his heels to look up at him.

“Uh, well, that looks like your name on the box, so.”

“I didn’t order anything.” Ryan rips at the paper, letting it fall to the floor at his feet and opens the box. “It’s shoes.” he says, blinking. “Uh.” He takes one out of the box and looks at it, glancing at the size on the sole. “I was looking at these last week.”

“Huh.” Nick says innocently, smiling in what he hopes is a This-Is-Not-Me-Being-Smug way before going back to organizing the CDs. Fucking Conrad messes them up every time he comes over and borrows something - Nick suspects that it’s revenge for all the music he’s stolen off Tom over the years.

“Nick,” Ryan says, looking like he’s trying very hard not to be exasperated. “Do you know how these shoes got here.”

“Nope!” Nick answers cheerfully. “They’re nice though, you should wear them.”

Anonymous gifts, he has decided, are much more endearing than just buying people shit. It’s like mysterious and sneaky and romantic and it helps build up the anticipation. It’s totally the best way to get Ryan to figure out that he wants to be Nick’s Boyfriend Or Whatever, which Nick figured out himself during his self imposed exile. Nick saw him swooning over those shoes last week and immediately remembered them when trying to think of cool things Ryan would like.

Anonymous gifts are a killer idea. Nick is absolutely positive.

He gives it two weeks at the _very most_ before Ryan is confessing his gay love.

 

\---

 

Except, as it turns out, two weeks go by and Ryan still hasn’t confessed his gay love. Actually he seems to be doing the opposite, which is avoiding Nick as much as possible again and just sort of mumbling whenever Nick tries to talk to him. It’s actually really fucking frustrating.

“I bought him a one of a kind Radiohead pressing,” he tells Jon indignantly over the phone. In the background he can hear what sounds like cooking noises and maybe a baby crying further off. Spencer has him so whipped, seriously. “It cost me way more money than I was willing to spend!”

The pressing was actually a huge disappointment. It had been Nick’s big one; he’d searched all over the place for it, had even had Brooke and Johnny and that intern whose name he could never remember (Adam? Alex?) all scouring the internet for it between jobs. He had pretty much been expecting Ryan to throw his arms around his neck or something in some dramatic gesture and then possibly beg Nick to let him blow him. Possibly. Instead Ryan’s eyes had widened for a fraction of a second and then narrowed like he was _annoyed_. He hadn’t even bothered to ask whether or not Nick had sent him that time, just set it on the shelf with a sigh and muttered something about going to see Sean.

On the other side of the line Jon hums noncommittally and does something at the stove that elicits a sizzling noise. Nick is revoking his status as a great guy. Jon Walker officially sucks.

“Are you even _listening_ to me!” Nick exclaims. “Shoes and a jacket and really fucking nice headphones and a one of a kind Radiohead pressing. Dude! He loves Radiohead it’s a _fact_ , I _know_ he does because he dragged me along to the concert and I had to pay like _forty bucks_ for a ticket.”

(Not that he’d ever admit it, but it had been really fun once he was there. Ryan apparently knows the word to every Radiohead song in existence and had moved his lips along silently to all of them. Nick ended up handing out at least six business cards and towards the end they both got drunk enough on shots that Ryan confessed in a laughing whisper that Nick was his best friend in the whole world, even way better than Sean Van Vleet. Totally worth the forty bucks.)

“Look Nick,” Jon sighs finally. “You bought him all this shit, great, but have you actually told him it was you? How is he supposed to know if you keep denying it.”

Jon Walker clearly knows nothing about courting anyone. Nick has to remind himself that Jon Walker probably isn’t much of a gentleman if he knocked his girlfriend up twice within two years of meeting her.

“I can’t tell him it’s me,” he says, annoyed. “That would ruin the whole thing. Totally beside the point.”

“I’m just saying that he can’t do anything if he doesn’t actually know it’s you doing things for him,” Jon replies. “Your whole sneaky thing only works for a little while, he does eventually have to know that you’re making an effort here dude, otherwise he’s just going to think he has some creepy stalker or you feel bad that he can’t afford his own shit or something.” Which. Makes a little bit of sense if Nick thinks about it.

“So what you’re saying,” he says slowly, mulling over this new information. “Is I have to do something that he knows I’m behind. Like a big awesome culminating gesture.”

“Uh.” says Jon. “Actually I just meant that maybe you should talk to hi-”

Nick’s brain is already working though, and he cuts him off. “Thanks Walker, I’ll talk to you later. Lots of shit to do. Keep checking your email for when I update you. Later.”

“Wait, what are you-” Jon starts to say, but Nick just hangs up the phone.

 

\---

 

The thing is, is that Nick is really actually good at shit. He _knows_ he is. He’s good at a lot of different things, too: like knowing what he’s good at in and of itself, like planning and thinking and getting things done, like showing up to things, like getting people together in one place. So after being informed that he needs to come up with something for Ryan, it kind of just makes sense that the point B to that point A is combining all of those things.

The other thing, is that despite all appearances, now that Nick has come to this whole realization he really can’t stop thinking about it, or having all these feelings about Ryan that he knows now have been lying dormant for a long time. It’s problematic, though, because it means that any time Ryan walks into a room Nick just wants to sling an arm around his neck and have Ryan lean into him. It means that if Nick were Pete or Sean he’d be waxing poetry about the color of Ryan’s eyes or some shit, but that because he’s not all he really wants is to be as near him as possible all the time.  
And of course all of this is problematic because Ryan is still barely talking to him, is incredibly good at being a sneaky fuck and making himself as scarce as he can. And it _hurts_ like Nick isn’t used to. The only thing that makes it slightly more bearable than it was before is that now he’s able to at least console himself with the fact that he can do something to change it.

 

\---

 

(Sometimes when he tries to pinpoint where everything started to go South, Nick thinks it might have all started with that James guy, the one Ryan started dating almost half a year after moving in.

Nick never met him, not really. One morning he’d woken up to Ryan letting himself in the apartment quietly, smiling in this weird way that Nick couldn’t quite place. He’d shaken his head when Nick asked where he was, said something about being “out” and asked if Nick wanted to hang that night, get drinks or something, and Nick had been trying to get Ryan out with him for weeks by this point so he let it drop and had forgotten about it.

Two nights later though, Nick came home early to an empty apartment only to discover upon calling that Ryan was out on a dinner date. He hadn’t meant to do it. Nick would swear down that he hadn’t meant to do anything. Feeling stupidly disappointed, embarrassed, he mumbled something about just tossing the takeout he’d brought home into the fridge for Ryan to eat later. He just didn’t know. He’d thought they could stay in or something. It was stupid.

“We haven’t eaten yet,” Ryan had said. “You could come pick me up.”

So Nick did. Of course he did. And they didn’t talk about whoever it was that Ryan left stranded at the restaurant.

Whoever it was  must not have minded though because Ryan kept seeing him for about a month. He stopped coming home at night and Nick stopped asking where he was, stopped trying to make plans with him. Nick worked a lot. He didn’t want to run into them and he hated being alone when he was at home so it was better to just stay at the office as much as he could. 

And then it was “Maybe you should just move in with him,” bitter and tired and snappy one morning when he came in from another night out. “This isn’t a fucking storage place. You’re not paying to keep your shit here.” And it was stupid, it was fucking stupid because the last thing he wanted was for Ryan to leave. He’d never asked him to pay any kind of rent because it was just where they lived. It was home and he didn’t mind.

Ryan’s eyes got wide, though, then he swallowed like he had maybe been expecting it. He didn’t say anything and Nick hated that more so he spit something else he didn’t mean, kept pushing until Ryan finally snapped back and they fought. They fought until Nick couldn’t even remember what they were fighting about anymore, until his throat felt sore and Ryan looked like he was about to shake out of his skin and he had to leave the room.

Through the wall, Nick heard Ryan call him. Heard him ask for a place to stay. Heard the crack in his voice when he said “James.” and then more strained, “Sorry. Sorry.”

When Nick came out of the room Ryan was sitting on the couch, his phone open and resting on his leg. His hands were trembling and he looked _small_. Small and fucking lost and maybe it was because Nick saw something of himself there that he sat down next to him, pulled him over and wrapped his arms around him to clutch him tight. Maybe that was only part of it.

“I’m sorry.”  he whispered, as Ryan took a heaving breath against his chest. “I’m sorry; I don’t want you to go.”

He dug his fingers into Ryan’s shirt and held him there, pressing them tight together while Ryan just put his arms around him back, pushed into him and shook, breathing like he was coming up from being underwater. Nick wasn’t sure what it was, why he needed to hug Ryan tighter, more fiercely. But just for right then he didn’t question it or think about it, just closed his eyes and let it sit there under his skin.

So maybe that’s where it started. Or maybe it was before that.

Ryan didn’t see James again after that, though. And Nick was glad.)

\--

Nick spends a long time making sure everything is perfect before he finally calls Sean and asks him to deliver Ryan to Angels and Kings the next Friday night. Sean sounds suspicious at first but comes around eventually. Nick suspects it’s thanks to Jon-through-Tom but he doesn’t actually care. He just needs Ryan to be there. He just needs Ryan to know.

It’s been two weeks since they’ve spoken more than three words to each other and he feels like he’s slowly losing air through a Ryan shaped hole in his lungs.

 

\---

 

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Nick.” Sean is saying on the phone. “I’m outside the apartment now, I don’t think he’s going to want to come out and meet you dude.”

Nick is at A&K already, trying to hang up a banner with “RYANJ IS AWESOME” emblazoned across it above the bar. It’s the exact opposite of subtle, which is exactly what he’s supposed to be going for with this whole ordeal. 

“That’s why you’re not going to tell him he’s coming to meet me,” Nick explains in exasperation, pinning the phone between his ear and his shoulder while he sticks tape to the banner to secure it. “You’re just supposed to be taking him out, it really isn’t that hard. I’m doing all the work on this project here Van Conrad, I’m asking you for like nothing.”

“What is that project again?” Sean asks, his tone of voice implying that he’s not sure he even wants to know.

Nick hasn’t told anyone yet, exactly. Not Sean at least (or Tom because that bastard would have spilled. He used to be so good at secrets). He’s invited everyone else to what he said was a surprise party for Ryan though and so far nobody seems to have leaked it. He went through Ryan’s phone in order to get emails for any friends that he may have that Nick wouldn’t know and the place is already nearly full. He has his iPod hooked up to the sound system, playing a list that’s like, hours and hours of what he knows is Ryan’s favourite music. He even has people walking around with trays of those tiny vegetarian spring rolls Ryan loves.

“I can’t tell you, you just have to wait and get here.”

Sean sighs, and Nick hears the sound of the elevator swooshing closed in the background. “Fine. Alright Nick, but I swear to God-”

“Yeah, yeah just get him here okay? I promise it’s fine. I _promise_.”

When Sean finally sighs and hangs up the phone, Nick manages to tape the last corner of the banner up, being extra careful on the step ladder because he really isn’t wearing the right kind of shoes for this and he doesn’t want to fall off. 

He spends the next ten minutes mingling, mostly, checking to see who’s already arrived and who never showed up, until Tom grabs his sleeve from the middle of a crowd and pulls him aside.

“Uh, Ryan and Sean just got here?” he looks worried, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know if-”

Before Tom can finish talking, Ryan is at Nick’s side, eyes blazing. He looks different than Nick has ever seen him, lit up and moving and furious. Nick had almost forgotten this, a Ryan who isn’t exhausted and hollow. It scares him a little, and he takes a step back unintentionally.

“I need to talk to you,” Ryan grits out. “Now.”

He grabs Nick by the sleeve and turns, moving his way through the club and towards the door while Nick is forced to stumble after him out of confusion as much as out of physical force. The outside air bites at his face once they actually push past the front doors, and Nick jerks his arm away at the same moment that Ryan whips around to face him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryan spits, his voice low and dangerous. “What the fuck is going on?”

When he played this scenario out in his head, this is never how he pictured it going.

“Uh,” he says, carefully, like there’s something here that one of them is missing. He hasn’t quite figured out who. “It’s a party? For you. Obviously?”

Ryan lets out what sounds like a choked, angry laugh, and squeezes his eyes shut for a second. “ _Why_ Nick?” he strains.  “You can’t just. You can’t fucking do this. You can’t buy me shit and send me things and pretend it isn’t you and invite all my friends to a fucking _party_.”  He seems to realize that he’s raising his voice because he flexes his hands into his hair for a second before hissing, “It’s fucking embarrassing.”

It’s cold out on the street, and Ryan is angry and Nick still feels like he can’t breathe except now he’s confused and pissed and hurt, too, because he spent _weeks_ planning this. Weeks of trying to figure out how to make Ryan even look at him again and now everything is falling apart for no reason at all.

“I did it for you,” he says angrily. “I. You didn’t like what I sent you? It’s nice shit, it’s shit you _wanted_. People are having fun,” He crosses his arms across his chest. “ _You’re_ supposed to be having fun.”

“Nobody’s having fun.” Ryan snaps. “They’re just staring at me. Nobody even knows what the hell you’re doing but whatever is it’s about _you_ the same way everything you ever do is.”

Nick stares at him speechlessly.

“I can take care of myself, so you can fucking find someone else to feel bad for.” Ryan continues, pacing against the sidewalk now, practically shaking, his breathing hard and angry. “It’s embarrassing. ‘Ryan needs a place to stay, Ryan can’t afford his own shit’, and.”

“That’s not what this is.” Nick tries to interrupt, frustrated.

“Shut up,” Ryan snaps back. “Shut up. Everyone in there fucking knows and you. I’m so _sick_ of everyone feeling bad for me and you just make everything worse.”

Inside the club the music has picked up into something fun, with a heavy beat that Nick can feel through the cement. It’s starting to snow.

“You don’t understand anything!” Nick exclaims. “You fucking don’t get _anything_ , I don’t feel _bad_ for you, I was trying. I was trying-”

Ryan turns to look at him again from where he was staring into the street trying to calm down, fast and pissed off. “ _I_ don’t understand Nick? _I_ don’t fucking understand anything?”

“It was supposed to be like. Like.” Nick struggles for words, pressing his hands to his eyes. Trying to keep control over himself as best he can since he’s already obviously lost any sort of hold on the situation at hand. He’s not going to break down in front of Ryan like this. “It was supposed to be like a _gesture_ , I was trying to fucking _tell_ you.”

“You’ve had three years!” Ryan practically yells, incredulous and angry and so _right there_ all of a sudden that it makes Nick feel tiny. “You’ve had three _fucking_ years and you didn’t do anything. You didn’t even _know_ , you still probably don’t even know what I’m talking about.” He’s closer now, as if he wants to reach out and punch Nick or grab him or _something_ if only he could stop shaking so hard. “You don’t get to do this. Not now. I’m not going to be someone else’s fucking experiment.”

“You’re not.” Nick says, shaking his head. “You’re not.”

Ryan takes a step back, his voice quiet and his eyes sharp, now. “I’ve been in love with you,” he says. “Since I fucking met you. And everyone’s been telling me to walk away just about as long. And now you’re trying to make gestures.” He shakes his head.

“ You don’t know what you want.”

The last part falls flat, dull anger and exhaustion back suddenly. 

The words are out of Nick’s mouth before he even realizes he’s said them, clear and strong, so true it fucking aches all the way through him.

“I just want you.”

“You don’t.” Ryan laughs again. “No, you don’t. You have no idea what you want.”

Suddenly Nick is so frustrated he can’t think. He wants to grab Ryan and shake him until he understands, dig his fingers into his shoulders until everything he’s feeling transfers over so that Ryan can fucking get it, because there’s no way that Nick’s been through this hell just to have Ryan of all people, Ryan who is supposed to know him better than anyone, tell him that he doesn’t know what he wants.

“Don’t fucking tell me I don’t know what I want.” Nick spits, pushing himself into Ryan’s space the way Ryan had done to him a moment before. “I’m fucking sorry that not all of us could just roll with this whole sexuality crisis thing, okay? Sorry that sometimes I get fucking scared, sorry that I fucking hated myself so much that I couldn’t even. I couldn’t even-” 

Just like that he’s not angry anymore, just sad and scared and desperate like he was in the car months ago, like he has been for so long.

“Sorry,” he repeats, softly this time. “Sorry.” Again, “I’m sorry.”

Ryan’s take a step back, and it’s just as well, because Nick can’t look at his face anymore. He doesn’t want to keep seeing Ryan mad at him. Hurt because of him. Or pitying him. He’s not sure which of the three would be worse.

“I just told you I’m in love with you.” Ryan says quietly, and it kind of sounds like he’s giving up. Nick can’t tell on what.

“So then be with me.” Nick replies, glancing up.

For a second it’s silent. Ryan shakes his head, over and over, then says sadly, “I don’t. I don’t believe you.”

“I want you so much it hurts,” Nick tells him. “Like I can’t breathe. Like-”

“A physical pain in your chest.” Ryan finishes for him. “And you can’t sleep or see or fucking live, and all you want is to be with them even if it isn’t good or healthy.” He laughs again, hoarse and short, and shoves shaking hands into his pockets instinctively like he’s looking for cigarettes but coming up empty, then rubs a hand across his face.

“It’s fucking scary.” Nick hears his own voice crack, knows his hands are shaking so he clasps them together for a second. “And. I’ve been in love with you for so long and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t okay? So I had to pretend it was enough just having you there, because that’s what I do, I just build things up to how I think they’re supposed to be, and-”

Now that he’s talking he can’t stop. He’s babbling, words falling out of his mouth faster than he can even keep up with them, faster than he even knew he could put the ache and the fear and the confusion to syllables, and he can’t. He can’t help it. He steps forward to Ryan, grips his cold fingers into the stiff material on the shoulders of Ryan’s jacket and holds on tight. It’s the first contact they’ve had in months.

“I know you don’t get it because nobody else does either,” he whispers. “But. I’m here. I’m here and I’m so sorry and I’m just. I’m asking.” Ryan’s staring at him, not saying anything, so he repeats it, raw and quiet and heavy. “I’m asking.”

“Asking me what?” There are snowflakes on Ryan’s eyelashes, wet and delicate.

Nick breathes in through his mouth, tired and cold and so, so desperate. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“Nick,” Ryan says. “Nicky.”

Nick’s mouth is still moving, still talking and trying to get the words out now that he’s so close. 

“I’m so sorry,” he’s saying. “I’m so fucking sorry and I don’t know how to fix it but I’m so fucking in love with you, I-”

“Kiss me.” Ryan interrupts. “ _Nick_.”

His hands respond before his brain does, jerking at Ryan’s coat to pull him up just as he leans in to kiss him hard. Ryan makes a choked noise against his mouth, stilling for just a second before he’s grabbing roughly at Nick’s sides holding on. The flex of his fingers in Nick’s shirt says “ _Finally_ ”. Ryan’s lips are chapped and dry from the cold, but Nick thinks he feels perfect, and he holds on as though at any minute something might rip Ryan away from him if he doesn’t.

Ryan kisses in contradictions: desperate and too careful;  like he’s drowning and like he’s just taken his first breath. He tastes like all the best corners and cracks of Chicago, like something Nick’s been looking for since he can remember.

Nick, in contrast, responds hungry and breathless; he thinks that if he could he would just swallow up all of Ryan’s air from his lungs, make them the same thing. 

They cling to each other in the middle of the sidewalk until Ryan finally breaks it, pulling back just an inch to breathe in. He’s still holding on to Nick’s sides, and it’s gotten cold enough now that there’s fog trailing out of his mouth with every heave of his chest.

“You must be fucking freezing, asshole.” he mumbles, burying his face into Nick’s neck and laughing in a way that Nick hasn’t heard in a long time. It isn’t until Ryan says it that he realizes he’s shivering- he didn’t bring a jacket out with him, and suddenly Nick is laughing too. It cracks through his teeth bright and happy, and he pulls Ryan in closer to him.

 

\---

 

Sleeping with Ryan is different, better, than anything he’s had before. While girls are all soft curves and slopes, Ryan is solid edges; muscle and bone and skin, shoulders and arms and chest. Distinctly masculine. Distinctly right under Nick’s hands.  He lets Nick push him back against the bed but grins as he goes down, pulls Nick to follow him. “Nick,” he whispers into Nick’s mouth, shivering as Nick runs his hands down him, over him like he’s trying to drink him in.

He helps Nick along as he goes, doesn’t comment on the way Nick knows his hands are shaking, the way he fumbles with the bottle of lube and almost spills it all over the bed.  Which is good, because Nick isn’t about to admit that he has no fucking clue what he’s doing, even if they both know it. When Nick figures it out, has his fingers in him and moving them, Ryan’s legs drop wider and his head tips back, like this is all he’s ever wanted in his whole goddamn life.

“That’s right, fuck,” he groans, keening. “Like that, you’ve got it. Fuck, more.”

Nick complies, pushing another finger inside and moving the way Ryan showed him, testing him a little harder and being rewarded by the way Ryan moans without seeming to mean to. “Jesus.” he whispers. “Jesus, Ryan.” It’s making him hot, having him like this, knowing that Ryan is liking what he’s doing, getting to see the way Ryan squirms if he twists his hand up properly.

“Nick. Nicky I’m ready, you can. Fuck Nick _please._ ” Ryan says, his voice rushed and rough. He’s moving his hips down in time with Nick’s hands, his pupils blown. “Fuck me, come on.”

Nick doesn’t have to be told twice. With fumbling hands he tears the condom open and rolls it on, trying not to be distracted by Ryan suddenly being at his side, pressing his mouth to Nick’s shoulder blade slowly, as though he’s trying to remember the exact shape of the bone under skin. He feels Ryan’s teeth brush his shoulder.  Once it’s on Nick pushes him down again, kisses him hard, as he lines himself up, breathes and sinks in. And. It’s different. God, it’s different. It’s tighter than he’s used to, and underneath him Ryan is taking shallow breaths, like he’s trying to adjust to the feeling of Nick inside of him. More than that though is the kick in his stomach telling him just how badly he wants to be here, something he’s never experienced before. He has to pause for a second and close his eyes, lean their foreheads together and try not to finish before he’s even started.

“Ryan,” he mumbles, voice low. “Ryan, Jesus, oh my god.”

Ryan responds by wrapping arms around his neck and rolling his hips up to take Nick all the way, sliding a hand down to Nick’s ass to try and get him to move. Nick does as he’s guided, tucking his face in close to Ryan’s neck where he can hear him, can bite gently at his jaw. They establish a rhythm and even that’s different, because even though Nick’s on top doing most of the work, he doesn’t feel like he’s totally in control, or like he has to be. Ryan is moving with him, is breathing hard and arching into his touches. His hands are firm and strong on Nick’s sides, his hips, his shoulders, and he’s and mumbling his name and suddenly Nick wants to kiss him so badly that it hurts. He shifts, licking into Ryan’s mouth again with a groan as he pushes forward into him, chasing the noises Ryan makes in the back of his throat.

Ryan links his leg over Nick’s hips, suddenly, and rolls them over so Nick is sitting up more with Ryan on top controlling the pace. He sinks down, tipping his head back with a sharp inhale and Nick groans in return, pressing thumbs into the hollow of his hipbones and helping him move. “You feel so good,” Nick grunts, leaning up to kiss Ryan’s neck, sucking at the skin across his collarbone, the noises he elicits from Ryan’s mouth enough to make Nick grip him tighter. Ryan reaches down for his hands and threads their fingers together, still moving, and draws them up over his own hips, his stomach, his ribs- as if he needs to have Nick’s hands on him, needs to have that contact. It makes Nick a shade desperate and he untangles their fingers to instead wrap his arms around Ryan’s shoulders and hold onto him as close as possible, so that they’re chest to chest. He can feel the muscles in Ryan’s back move and shift, can picture the little half moon crescents that Ryan’s fingernails are leaving on his own shoulders. Ryan’s breath is hot and damp where he’s panting against his neck.

“God Nick,” it’s almost a whimper this time. “Nick you feel so good, please. Please.”

The heat is building in Nick’s stomach, pooling and spreading through him and he knows he’s close, knows Ryan must be too from the way his hands keep gripping tighter to Nick’s shoulders. He lets himself go, lets his head drop to Ryan’s shoulder and lets his hips snap up faster. “Nicky,” Ryan is moaning. “ _Nicky_.” right next to his ear like he isn’t able to say anything else.

Nick knew that he wasn’t going to be able to last long from the moment Ryan pushed their hips together in the doorway of the apartment. Just as he’s wondering how much longer he can hold on, Ryan has a hand in his hair and is holding tightly, head tipped back as he cries out.  Nick grabs him tight and pushes his hips up, fucking him through it as Ryan comes all over his hand and Nick’s stomach and before Nick can even register what’s happening, he’s following. His hips snap up fast, and he comes so hard that it nearly blinds him, his vision blacking out and a raw noise pushing its way out of his throat. In the back of his mind he registers that it sounds like Ryan’s name.

Afterward, Ryan rolls off of him and wipes his hands off on a shirt he finds on the floor. When he thinks he’s finished panting Nick does the same, and slides off the bed to head for the bathroom. He tosses the used condom into the trash and turns the tap on, running his hands under warm water. The face reflected back in the mirror in front of him is still flushed, lips bitten and slightly swollen. There’s a dark purple-red swatch of skin beginning to form around his neck and collarbone. He brings his fingers up and pushes them there. He looks lighter, he thinks. Happier maybe, and with that thought he shuts the tap off and heads back in the direction of the bedroom.

Ryan is sitting on the very edge of the bed when Nick comes back, glancing around almost nervously like he might have to grab his clothes in a second. Nick blinks a little as he realizes it must be out of habit.

“Hey,” he says, smiling a little. “Hey you uh, better not be planning on ditching out on me here.” Ryan glances up at him. His face immediately relaxes when he sees the way Nick is smiling at him, and he lets out a breathless laugh. “No.” he says. “No, I guess I’m not.”

Nick grins, stupidly, unable to stop, and climbs back onto the bed with a sigh, stretching himself out. Ryan follows him down, then, after a moment of hesitation, curls in close to him, one hand on Nick’s chest and his head rested on his shoulder. 

“Is this going to be the same in the morning?” he asks quietly, and Nick puts an arm around his shoulders possessively and draws him in closer.

“Yeah Ryanj,” he answers softly, cautiously nuzzling down into Ryan’s hair, unsure if he’s allowed, if it’s too much. “I’d like it to still be the same in the morning.” Ryan nods slightly, then tucks himself into Nick’s neck a little more, resting his lips over Nick’s pulse point. “Okay.” he whispers. 

When Nick falls asleep, Ryan is breathing evenly into his neck, limbs tangled up with his.

He sleeps better than he has in years, and he thinks maybe it’s because he finally feels like he’s home.

 

_**\----Epilogue----**_

Nick is in the bathroom just finishing shaving while Ryan digs around in their room. He can hear a slam like maybe Ryan’s struggling with the dresser drawers again (like always), and rolls his eyes, smoothing away an expanse of shaving cream on his neck. 

Since making the official move out of the spare room and into Nick’s ( _their_ ) bed, Ryan’s shit has slowly been taking over everything. Nick didn’t even realize how much stuff he had until suddenly it was spread all over the apartment rather than being contained in neat boxes and bags in the spare room in case Ryan had to run. Nick likes it, even if he does bitch about the sanctity of being tidy.

“Nicky where’s the oil stuff for my nice shoes?” Ryan calls from the bedroom, voice muffled like he’s yelling from the depths of the closet. 

“It’s in the _drawer_ in the _kitchen_ ,” Nick calls back, exasperated. “With all the rest of your ridiculous shoe care shit, I _organized_ it, duh.” Ryan appears in the doorway, mostly dressed but with his jacket askew and unzipped and only one shoe on his foot. Nick glances back at him in the mirror. “I don’t know how you would even keep track of anything without me.”

Ryan rolls his eyes and mumbles something that sounds like “Whatever asshole,” before stepping into the bathroom and hooking his chin over Nick’s shoulder. “Kind of doing something here,” Nick points out, fake annoyed, but turns his head to meet Ryan’s lips anyway, kissing him deeply. When he pulls back, there’s a spot of shaving cream on Ryan’s cheek and he’s grinning.

“Hurry up, we’re going to be late.”

Nick’s dj’ing at a bar they’re both familiar with, some place dark with a big dance floor and a bartender who’ll put all the shots they buy on Nick’s tab even though it’s technically not allowed. He keeps touching Ryan the whole way there- a hand on his leg in the taxi, on his lower back once they get there, fingers in the strands of hair at the back his neck while he waits for his turn to go up.  It’s possessive but Ryan doesn’t seem to mind; he leans into it, and Nick is glad that it’s both of them still reveling in the shared space.

When it’s his time to spin, Ryan hangs back with him, nursing a beer and hovering around to watch. “It’s hot,” he says, close to Nick’s ear so that he can be heard, the strobe lights reflecting off of the stupid fake glasses he’s wearing. “You look hot.” and just like that Nick has to set the music up to keep going without him for a few seconds so that he can crowd Ryan back against the wall.

They’re both sweaty and a little drunk; Ryan tastes like beer and the red shots they were doing earlier when Nick tongue slips past his lips. He slips his hands under Ryan’s shirt and pushes him firmly back against the wall by his hips and Ryan fists a hand into his hair and kisses him back slow and dirty until they have to break off so that Nick can go back.

Somehow Nick manages to finish the rest of the set while Ryan laughs and whispers dirty shit into his ear. He’s pretty sure that kind of restraint makes him like, a superhero.

They walk home because the spring air is fresh and clean, good for their heads, and secretly because Nick wants to hold Ryan’s hand. There was a brief period after they got together where unless they were amongst friends, he wouldn’t. They would walk closely together and Nick would keep his hands to himself despite how much he didn’t want to. It was a weird adjustment period, but Ryan had waited for him, waited until he was ready, and now he just wants to do it all the time because it reminds him that Ryan is his. He likes that.

“You’re so getting laid when we get home Nick Scimeca,” Ryan is laughing, squeezing Nick’s hand, and Nick grins, lunging over to plant a buzzed, sloppy kiss against Ryan’s cheek. “Lucky you,” he grins, and Ryan just shoves him.

About a block from their apartment something in the display window next to him catches Nick’s eye. It’s a jewelry shop, and he sees flashes of gold, platinum, silver bands and just before Ryan tugs him and they stumble off together into the night, Nick finds himself thinking _maybe_.

Maybe.


End file.
